More websites

More New websites about the Authorship debate.

Shakespeare Life and Times
Shakespeare, Marlowe and Hamlet

I am actually looking for more information about Mary Sidney Herbert and her family as well as her writings. I have not decided for or against her yet. I can't really do that until the Shakespeare Challenge starts and I can actually read some books.

Was the Bard a Woman?

Have discovered yet another possible author for the Shakespeare plays, and some new books as well. This new author may be well known to some of you, but not to me. I just found her tonight.

BOOKS
The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare (Hardcover)
by Brenda James (Author), William Rubinstein (Author)
About Sir Henry Neville
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Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?
By Robin P. Williams
About Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke
Website - Mary Sidney
Blog - Robin Williams Blog
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Tiger's Heart in Woman's Hide: Volume 1
by Fred Faulkes
Trafford Publishing
ISBN 1-4251-0739-7
Prices US$21.70, C$24.95, EUR17.82, £12.48
Website - Tiger Heart Chronicles

Naively drawn into the question of Shakespeare's authorship, a librarian gathers together the poet's documentary history. He is shocked to discover Elizabethans already knew what and who.

By relating what the bedrock documents of history have to tell us, we can determine that the question of Shakespeare’s authorship arose the moment the poet’s hand was first noticed in 1592 and remained a ‘newsworthy’ matter throughout the period. The record further indicates that Mary Sidney was the best prepared and best positioned to do what Shakespeare would do but that she, as a woman, was barred. But from the beginning it is clear that the poet’s contemporaries understood Mary Sidney to be the force behind the pen.
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Mary Sidney Herbert - Wikipedia
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Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem
(Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies)
by Diana Price
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Shakespeare by Another Name

WOW, Today I received an email from Mark Anderson, author of the book Shakespeare by Another Name. He was extending an invitation for me and my readers (blog and challenge) to join an IM chat about his book next year - in March 2008.

Mr Anderson's book advocates the theory that Edward de Vere was the real author of the Plays, precisely because most of the biographical details found in the plays, more closely fit Edward de Vere's life, not Will Shakespeare's.


I'm the author of one of the books on your Shakespeare Challenge list -- "Shakespeare" By Another Name -- and would like to extend an offer to you and your blog's readers to set up a time for a one- or two-hour long IM chat, say, halfway through the challenge in March sometime. [...] We can set up a public IM chat room that you and I and your blog's readers and my blog's readers could join in on at that time.

If anyone is interested in joing an IM (Instant Messaging) chat with Mr Anderson in March next year, please email me, or leave a comment, so I can arrange a date.

Mr Anderson's Blog is here.

Desda - Desda - Desdemona

I'm testing this out. Have never embedded a video before.
This is a musical version of Othello by the Kids from FAME.
I loved that program - even if it was over 20 years ago. Hey it works.

Master of Shakespeare & Shakespeare Geek

I came across another possible Shakespeare author contender today. Master of Shakespeare, better known as Fulke of Greville.

Fulke Greville was an aristocrat, courtier, statesman, sailor, soldier, spymaster, literary patron, dramatist, historian and poet. He was educated at Shrewsbury and Jesus College, Cambridge. He worked for Sir Francis Walsingham as an ‘intelligencer’ where he traveled extensively throughout Europe. He became a great favorite of Queen Elizabeth, was Clerk to the Council of Wales, Treasurer of the Navy, and from 1614-1621 he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.

After the death of his father in 1606, Fulke became Recorder of Stratford-upon-Avon and he held that post until 1628. Greville was famous for his friendship with, and biography of Sir Philip Sidney, and his long tempestuous love affair with Philip’s sister, Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke.

I have also found a new Shakespeare blog called Shakespeare Geek. Makes very interesting reading. He is an IT programmer, has three young children, and his favourite play seems to be King Lear. He is also teaching his kids ALL the plays and sonnets. The Geek has found a LOT of stuff about Shakespeare. For example, he found Shakespeare in (American) Sign Language. Well he is a geek after all. I hope he doesn't mind my adding some of the more interesting links to my sidebar.

And lastly I have found the Holy Grail of Shakespeare (at least my Holy Grail anyway). The Shakespeare Apocrypha (again thanks to Shakespeare Geek) which lists all plays claimed to have been written by Shakespeare, but there is no definite proof.

My books for the Shakespeare Challenge

Shakespeare by another Name - by Mark Anderson
Shakespeare's Face - by Stephanie Nolen
Shakespeare & Co - by Stanley Wells
Shakespeare The World as Stage - by Bill Bryson
Shakespeare the Man - by A.L. Rowse
History Play - by Rodney Bolt
A Year in the life of William Shakespeare - by James Shapiro
Me and Shakespeare - by Herman Gollob



This challenge starts January 1st, 2008, and runs for 6 months. You need only read 4 books about or pertaining to Shakespeare, including the Plays and the Sonnets if you wish. The above list are those books that I plan on reading. I do not know which four I will read - that depends on my moods and time constraints.

Shakespeare and Marlow

I have found a few new Websites and Books with some very interesting ideas about Christopher Marlow.

Shakespeare and Marlow says that Shakespeare and Marlow co-authored the play of Hamlet, and there is a new edition of Hamlet that shows this collaboration.

Peter Zenner (The Phoenix) in England has an intriguing new idea. That Kit Marlowe did not exist at all, and that Kit Marlowe was somehow mixed up with a man named Christopher Morley. However it seems Christopher Morley was not his real name either. His real name was William Pierce. Peter Zenner says he has written a book describing this triage - The Shakespeare Invention - where he reveals that the 'Invention' consisted of three men -- the author, the actor and the man whose name they purloined.

Marlow/Shakespeare School of Thought By John Baker. This is an amateur website that brings together a large number of links about Marlow. Some very interesting pages too. Such as the following.

Primary Documents for Marlow
What really happened in 1593

And lastly I found an article from the New York Times dated January 2005, about Christopher Marlow.

Books about Marlow

The World of Christopher Marlow. By David Riggs.

A Review of The World of Christopher Marlow

History Play: The Lives and Afterlives of Christopher Marlowe By Rodney Bolt (2004)

Shakespeare Thy Name is Marlow, By David Rhys Williams. (1966) Williams was a Unitarian Minister.

Shakespeare Theatre Washington DC

The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC has a Mini-Marlow festival coming up later this month. Two of Christopher Marlow's plays will be performed.

Edward II
by Christopher Marlowe
directed by Gale Edwards
10/27/2007 - 1/6/2008

Tamburlaine
by Christopher Marlowe
adapted and directed by Michael Kahn
10/30/2007 - 1/6/2008

Also a Marlow Symposium will be held on November 10th. More details can be seen here.

I am mentioning this because I personally believe that Marlow survived the brawl at the tavern, in which he was supposedly killed in 1593, and fled to Europe where he continued to write the plays that have been attributed to Shakespeare.

Update on the challenge

New people interested in joining.

Gautami Tripathy
Sherrie W
A Book in the Life
David Blixt
Wormauld

Yes David, Dante & Shakespeare together in a novel is fine.