William Shakespeare is easily the most well-known playwright in the English language. His works are praised as some of the greatest feats of writing and are still required reading throughout the English speaking world. But what if the man from Stratford-upon- Avon was not the true author of the plays? What if the “Bard” was actually an illiterate who bumbled into fame and fortune? There are still hundreds of educated people who believe William Shakespeare was the biggest fraud in literary history. Listen and find out how aristocratic conspiracies, faked deaths, secret ciphers, Morse code, and Mark Twain all play a role in this story!

Works Cited

BATE, Jonathan. The Genius of Shakespeare. London: Picador, 1997. Print.

Bethell, Tom. “The Case for Oxford.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 01 Oct. 1991. Web. 09 Aug. 2017.

Callaghan, Dympna. Who Was William Shakespeare?: An Introduction to the Life and Works. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Print.

Craig, Hugh. “Shakespeare’s Vocabulary: Myth and Reality.” Shakespeare Quarterly 62.1 (2011): 53-74. Print.

“Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre (SARC).” Concordia University. 05 June 2017. Web. 09 Aug. 2017.

Shapiro, James. Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print.