Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford was also the Lord Great Chamberlain of England and a courtier poet. There is little evidence that suggests he did write them, but some believe there are references in the plays to de Vere’s life and that there are a series of codes in the writing that implicate the Earl as the author. This is the theory put forward in the film Anonymous.
Sir Francis Bacon: It is also thought possible that Sir Francis Bacon, writer of New Atlantis, essayist and scientist, could have penned the plays. Again there is little evidence to suggest this, apart from similarities in the plays to his own. The theory that Bacon could have written the plays was first put forward in 1856.
Christopher Marlowe: The playwright Christopher Marlowe was writing at the same time as Shakespeare and it’s likely that the two crossed paths. The theory goes that the reports of Marlowe’s death in a drunken brawl on May 30 1593 were falsified to protect him from going to prison for being an atheist. Marlovians believe that Shakespeare was named as the plays’ author to protect the truth of what really happened to Marlowe.
William Stanley: With the initials WS, William Stanley is another strong contender for authorship of the plays. He was the 6th Earl of Derby and had his own theatre company called Derby’s men. He was known to sign himself off as Will. He travelled in Europe, and through his marriage to Elizabeth de Vere, he was related to William Cecil, on whom many believe the character of Polonius in Hamlet is based.
Roger Manners: The theory that the plays were written by Roger Manners, the 5th Earl of Rutland, was supported by a German literary critic called Karl Bleibtreu in 1907. Manners married the daughter of the poet Philip Sydney and it is thought that the two of them together wrote the plays. However, the Earl would have been only 16 when the first of Shakespeare’s works was published in 1593. The Telegraph online article 22nd April 2014, ‘Shakespeare: The Conspiracy Theories’
Records like that do exist for just about every other playwright at the time. That is missing for Shakespeare and is an enormous gap. Dr William Leahy, Brunel University, London
He’s OK with having his kids grow up functionally illiterate; it doesn’t sit properly. Diana Price
There is nothing preserved of this great genius which is worth knowing. John Adams
45,814. It is easy to imagine a farmer’s boy emigrating to London and becoming a successful actor and theatre owner; but for him to have become the great poet and dramatist, and to have had such a knowledge of foreign courts, cardinals and kings, is inconceivable to me. Charlie Chaplin
The man from Stratford seems to have nothing at all to justify his claim, whereas Oxford has everything. Sigmund Freud
Soul of the age. The applause, the delight, the wonder of our stage. Our Shakespeare arise. Our Shakespeare. For he is all of ours, is he not. Anonymous 2011 starring Rhys Ifans & Venessa Redgrave & Joely Richardson & David Thewlis & Rafe Spall & Sebastian Armesto & Edward Hogg & Xavier Samuel & Sam Reid & Jamie Campbell et al, director Roland Emmerich
Plays are the work of the Devil. Born from a cesspool of plague, whoredom, thievery, fornication and heresy. ibid. Cecil
In my world, one does not write plays, Jonson. ibid. Oxford
Words will prevail with Elizabeth, not swords. ibid.
Elizabeth had several bastard children, Edward. ibid. Robert Cecil
None of your poems or your plays will ever carry your name. ibid. Elizabeth to Oxford
No writer before or since has caught us so completely as William Shakespeare. Great Britons s1e10, Shakespeare, Fiona Shaw, BBC 2002
[Ben] Jonson immediately recognised Shakespeare’s genius. He later wrote of his friend, ‘He was not for an age, but for all time’. But even Jonson would never have guessed how right he would be. Shakespeare had by now produced the greatest body of creative work the world had ever seen and ever would see. ibid.
Just three years after his return to Stratford in 1616 he died, on the same day he was born: the 23rd April. Only three months earlier he had claimed to be in good health. But it’s thought the years of heavy drinking took its toll. ibid.
This is Raymond Scott. For two years he has been at the centre of an international mystery involving a stolen literary treasure worth millions. This book is considered the most important in the English language, and twelve years ago a unique copy was stolen from a British university. Stealing Shakespeare, BBC 2010
One of the world’s nine missing first folios was stolen from here in Durham twelve years ago. It was just one of ten rare books and manuscripts snatched from the university library on a bleak winter’s day. ibid.
Raymond Scott was cleared of stealing the First Folio, but convicted of handling it. The Judge said Scott would receive ‘a substantial custodial sentence’. ibid.
They never were conventional parents. Here they are doing what they loved most of all: playing Shakespeare in the land they loved most of all – India. Felicity Kendal’s Indian Shakespeare Quest ***** BBC 2012
This was once Calcutta’s theatre land. ibid.
We travelled far and wide playing Shakespeare to Indian audiences. ibid.
English became the official language of Indian administration. ibid.
Before long Indians weren’t only studying Shakespeare they were performing him too, and that’s when the plays really catch fire. ibid.
By the 1850s Shakespeare had become an icon for educated Indians. ibid.
My father’s passion and sheer bloody-mindedness kept Shakespeareana’s show on the road well into the 1970s. ibid.
My father believed Shakespeare and India were a natural fit. ibid.
The dozen or so plays, many of them Shakespeare’s greatest, that he wrote after Elizabeth died – Shakespeare’s Jacobean plays are dark, complex and ambiguous. Professor James Shapiro, The King & The Playwright: A Jacobean History: Incertainties I, BBC 2012
From now on Shakespeare would be known as the King’s man. ibid.
The English nation had entered a new era of conspiracy and anxiety. Professor James Shapiro, The King & The Playwright: A Jacobean History II: Equivocation
Union was James’s greatest political goal. ibid.
The theme of equivocation dominates the play [Macbeth] ... This was a message King James liked to hear. ibid.
His great rival: Ben Jonson. ibid.
Antony & Cleopatra ... Shakespeare’s Egypt is a decadent place. ibid.
The Midlands Uprising ... The protest leaders were hung, drawn and quartered. ibid.
Coriolanus: He loves not the common people ... That ambiguity says much of the times. ibid.
Shakespeare’s drama had become the touchstone of the gathering storm that was James’s reign. ibid.
The Winter’s Tale: the collapse of the court into chaos is rapid. Professor James Shapiro, The King & The Playwright: A Jacobean History III: Legacy
The Tempest: Prospero stage-manages everything in this play. ibid.
Ten years into James’s reign, Shakespeare’s view of monarchy remains so ambivalent. ibid.
He returned to his rural Stratford estate. ibid.
That star still burns bright. ibid.
Twelfth Night: for me this play speaks to all our hopes and dreams, the chance to start again, the prospect of a whole new world. Shakespeare Uncovered I: Joely Richardson on Shakespeare’s Women: Twelfth Night & As You Like It, BBC 2012
Few women in any drama can match the heroine of Shakespeare’s sweetest and most romantic comedy – Rosalind in As You Like It. ibid.
Shakespeare was immediately recognised as a playwright of skill. ibid.
His son Hamlet died at the age of 11. ibid.
As You Like It: once again our heroine is dressed as a boy. ibid.
Shakespeare was a showbizzness impresario, and As You Like It was a hit. ibid.
He championed us. ibid.