Shakespeare authorship question
Fringe theories that Shakespeare's works were written by someone else
The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—believe that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for some reason—usually social rank, state security, or gender—did not want or could not accept public credit. Although the idea has attracted much public interest, all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe theory and for the most part acknowledge it only to rebut or disparage the claims.
“Shakespeare authorship question” enters the record as fringe theories that Shakespeare's works were written by someone else. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Shakespeare, authorship and question can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shakespeare authorship question” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.