Necessary Mischief: Exploring the Shakespeare Authorship Question

For more than two hundred years, the authorship of the works known as the Shakespeare canon has been called into question. Each chapter in this book explores an issue that has not been closely investigated, bringing new depth to the Shakespeare Authorship Question. For example, the man from Stratford -upon-Avon was rich: he owned five houses. Yet he fails to support his wife in her widowhood; all he could bring himself to leave her in his will was his second best bed. In the chapter on his Last Will and Testament, he leaves nothing to the Stratford Grammar School -- something that a local lad who was an important person in London (if the story was true) would surely have done. No school classmate recalled him. No teacher that he might have had remembered him. The Stratford man's daughters were illiterate, as were his wife and his parents. No writer or educated person records meeting him. No one loaned him a book; he makes no mention of books in his will. No one paid tribute to him when he died. In short, there is no hard evidence to show that he even had a cultivated mind or led a cultured life. But if this man from Stratford did not write the great literary masterpieces attributed to him, then who did? When people have searched for a better candidate, they have looked at historical figures with memorable biographies. Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was forgotten. His name was extracted from the dustbin of history by a Shakespearean profile. De Vere (called "Oxford") was discovered because a few of his short poems survived. There was, according to a 19th century editor, "an atmosphere of graciousness and culture about them that is grateful." About the author, he noted "that somehow a shadow lies across his [Oxford's] memory." As we have learned more about Oxford's unusual life, we find that he fits the Shakespeare profile with startling specificity.

Bonner Miller Cutting has devoted decades to the study of Shakespeare, publishing articles, blogging, writing book reviews, and giving talks at authorship conferencences and academic venues. Her YouTube videos are presented by the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, and her interview on the Stratford's man's last will and testament can be accessed on the Shakespeare Underground website. This is her first book.