Shakespeare beyond Doubt

Dr Paul Edmondson is Head of Research and Knowledge and Director of the Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival for The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. His publications include: Twelfth Night: A Guide to the Text and Its Theatrical Life, and (co-authored with Stanley Wells), Shakespeare's Sonnets, Coffee with Shakespeare, and Shakespeare Bites Back (an e-book about the Shakespeare Authorship Discussion, published in October 2011). His other publications include work on Shakespeare and the Brontës, the poetry of Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and the musicality of Shakespeare's words. He is curator of 60minuteswithShakespeare.com, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's response to the authorship debate. He is also a priest in The Church of England. Stanley Wells, CBE, is Honorary President and Former Chairman of the Trustees of Shakespeare's Birthplace, Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies of the University of Birmingham, and Honorary Emeritus Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, of which he was for many years Vice-Chairman. He was for nearly twenty years the editor of the annual Shakespeare Survey, and writes for The New York Review of Books and many other publications. He has edited The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies and is General Editor (with Gary Taylor) of The Complete Oxford Shakespeare. His most recent books are Shakespeare For All Time; Looking for Sex in Shakespeare; Shakespeare and Co., and Is It True What they Say About Shakespeare?. His Shakespeare, Sex, and Love was published in 2010.

• General introduction Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells; Part I. Sceptics: Introduction to Part One Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells; 1. The unreadable Delia Bacon Graham Holderness; 2. The case for Bacon Alan Stewart; 3. The case for Marlowe Charles Nicholl; 4. The life and theatrical interests of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford Alan H. Nelson; 5. The unusual suspects Matt Kubus; Part II. Shakespeare as Author: Introduction to Part Two Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells; 6. Theorizing Shakespeare's authorship Andrew Hadfield; 7. Allusions to Shakespeare to 1642 Stanley Wells; 8. Shakespeare as collaborator John Jowett; 9. Authorship and the evidence of stylometrics MacDonald P. Jackson; 10. What does textual evidence reveal about the author? James Mardock and Eric Rasmussen; 11. Shakespeare and Warwickshire David Kathman; 12. Shakespeare and school Carol Chillington Rutter; 13. Shakespeare tells lies Barbara Everett; Part III. A Cultural Phenomenon: Did Shakespeare Write Shakespeare?: Introduction to Part Three Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells; 14. 'This palpable device': authorship and conspiracy in Shakespeare's life Kathleen E. McLuskie; 15. Amateurs and professionals: regendering Bacon Andrew Murphy; 16. Fictional treatments of Shakespeare's authorship Paul Franssen; 17. The declaration of reasonable doubt Stuart Hampton-Reeves; 18. 'There won't be puppets, will there?': 'Heroic' authorship and the cultural politics of Anonymous Douglas M. Lanier; 19. 'The Shakespeare establishment' and the Shakespeare authorship discussion Paul Edmondson; Afterword James Shapiro; A selected reading list Hardy M. Cook.

'Until now no book has provided the comprehensive evidence necessary to satisfy those 'Reasonable Doubters'.' James Shapiro, Columbia University, and author of Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?