A Monograph on the True Authorship of the Plays of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe

l. That William Shakespeare wrote all thirty five of his plays and Christopher Marlowe wrote all six of his plays.

2. That Shakespeare wrote some of the plays attributed to him and Marlowe wrote the rest while he was forced to live out his life in Italy for political reasons.

3. That Shakespeare did not write any of the plays attributed to him, and Marlowe wrote all of them, sent each of them from Italy to his patron in England, Sir Thomas Walsingham, younger brother of Sir Francis Walsingham, one of the four or five men closest to Queen Elizabeth. Sir Thomas had each play he received from Italy copied by a professional copyist, (to prevent anyone in London from recognizing Marlowe's handwriting, which was certain, had he sent the originals directly to London) kept the original, and forwarded the copy to Shakespeare to use as he saw fit, in compliance with the arrangement the two playwrights had made, Shakespeare sharing with the playwright abroad any profits which might be made from each play after it was produced and put on the boards of the Globe Theater, in which Shakespeare was a partner.

We will deal with each of the above possibilities in its turn.

The general purpose of this search is to chide the enthusiasts of the Marlovian theory, which can best be stated as asserting the proposition that Marlowe wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare. Why chide them? Because it seems to me they exhibit far more dedication and enthusiasm in their belief than sensible means of going about testing their theory against whatever realities are available, given the paucity of information about any people from the Elizabethan era. I don't just mean information about Shakespeare, but about all the other Elizabethan playwrights: Beaumont and Fletcher, Messinger, Decker, John Webster, on and on.

Why would we need information about the other playwrights in our delvings? For comparative purposes, comparisons being one of the best means available for finding out something about Shakespeare by looking at the various other men's lives, and comparing whatever we find out about them with Shakespeare, which might even allow us to draw an occasional conclusion about him.

And what areas would we be wisest to pursue in our investigations? Three areas come to mind, the first being the vocabulary of Marlowe as exhibited in his six plays: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus; Tamerlane I, and Tamerlane II; The Jew Of Malta; Dido, Queen of Carthage; and Edward the Second. The purpose of this is to compare it with the twenty seven thousand-word vocabulary Shakespeare has been calculated to have possessed. If a search can be made to come up with such numbers for Shakespeare, why not do the same for Marlowe? Just turn the computer specialists loose on it. Their findings might be interesting.

To clarify the point of how large a vocabulary each of the above men had, we only need to refer to the group of scholars who compiled and wrote the King James version of the Bible. Their vocabulary in the English language came to something like 8,500 words. John Milton's was about 9,500 words, which is startling, considering that Milton was one of the world's all-time leaders in intellectual prowess. Yet compared to Shakespeare's twenty seven thousand-word vocabulary, poor Milton's 9,500 looks sort of anemic, doesn't it?

But that's only to give us something comparative to work with, if we can come up with a count of Marlowe's vocabulary.

What are we accomplishing with the above effort? We are bringing to the attention of the Marlovian true-believers the practical sorts of things they should be doing instead of their usual righteous moaning in the wilderness.

Another area deserving investigation is the reality that Shakespeare retired from the London theater scene and retired to Stratford-on-Avon, where he spent his remaining years investing in real estate and similar ventures. He lived right around the corner from the local grammar school, but neither of his two daughters was sent to that school.

Astonishing, huh? Here is a playwright who has written plays acknowledged to be among the greatest ever written, some of whose heroines were among the brightest, wittiest, most charming and intelligent female characters in all of literature, and yet he does not even take the trouble to send his two daughters to the local school. Was it the common custom at the time? And more to the point, was it the custom of other playwrights of the time? We can't be sure that whatever practices they indulged in with their daughters would have influenced him, but it might tell us something about the kinds of men they were, and might help us understand the sort of man Shakespeare was.

So the field of inquiry here would be to work up a pretty good biography of each of the twenty or thirty Elizabethan playwrights of Shakespeare's time to discover two things: One, how did each of them educate his children? Not only his daughters, but his sons, too. Knowing the answers to both those questions would tell us much, not only about the customs of the time, but about each of the men, and, indirectly, perhaps even about Shakespeare. For instance, if a majority of them had both sons and daughters and educated only the sons, we've learned something significant. But if some of them educated both sons and daughters, that tells us something, too. It would depend on how much of a majority did which: educate both boys and girls, educate only boys, or perhaps even educate neither.
Why do I put this field of investigation forward in this search for the true writer of the plays attributed to Shakespeare? I can't tell you the stunning surprise I felt when I learned that the retired playscript doctor and playwright and stage manager and actor of London had not gone to the trouble and expense of sending his two daughters around the corner in the town of Stratford to the local grammar school. I could see for a numbing instant how this country bumpkin might not have written any plays, never mind all the plays he is supposed to have written.

All right, perhaps the thinking of the time was different than ours. Why educate a girl if she was never going to need or use anything she learned, including simply reading a public notice, or doing simple arithmetic to figure out the weekly grocery bills in her life married to a local tradesman or field hand?
Still, it gives one pause, no?

A third area warranting investigation would be to find out what was said about each of the playwrights when he died. Nothing was written about the death of Shakespeare at the time he died. Okay, Stratford was a long way from London in those days of hard travel, and news traveled slowly, if at all, particularly if you're a man who severed all connections with the theater people he had formerly worked with, once he settled back in his hometown.
But not a single word, anywhere?

So I think you can see how a comparative search and study would, or might, pay useful dividends here. When Beaumont died, what was written about him? And John Fletcher? And Decker? And all of them.

Statistics, that's what the Marlovian enthusiasts need. Digging.

So we have outlined the three areas which might produce interesting results and helpful information: what was Marlowe's vocabulary calculated to be; how did the contemporary playwrights of Shakespeare educate their children, both sons and daughters; and what was said about each of those twenty or thirty roaring boys upon his sad death?

I wish you the very best cess in the above searchings.