THE SHAKESPEARE MYTH
By Edwin Durning-Lawrence,
1912
Original
Original
CONTENTS
BACON SHEWN BY CONTEMPORARY TITLE PAGES TO BE THE AUTHOR OF THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS.
THE SHAKESPEARE SIGNATURES (SO-CALLED).
BACON SIGNED THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS.
THE NORTHUMBERLAND MANUSCRIPTS.
BACON AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Halliwell-Phillipps says: "It was not till the Jubilee of 1769 that the tendency to the fabrication of Shakespeare anecdotes and relics at Stratford Museum became manifest. All kinds of deception have since been practised there."
THE FOLIO OF THE PLAYS, 1623.
IT is now universally admitted that the Plays known as Shakespeare's are the greatest "Birth of Time," the most wonderful product of the human mind which the world has ever seen, that they evince the ripest classical scholarship, the most perfect knowledge of Law, and the most intimate acquaintance with all the intricacies of the highest Court life.
The Plays as we know them, appeared in the Folio, published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death in 1616. This volume contains thirty-six plays. Of this number only eight are substantially in the form in which they were printed in Shakespeare's lifetime. Six are greatly improved. Five are practically rewritten, and seventeen are not known to have been printed before Shakespeare's death, although thirteen plays of similar names are registered or in some way referred to.
The following particulars are mainly derived from Reed's "Bacon our Shakespeare," published 1902. The spelling of the first Folio of 1623 has, however, been strictly followed.
THE EIGHT WHICH ARE PRINTED IN THE FOLIO SUBSTANTIALLY AS THEY ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE QUARTOS ARE:—
1. Much ado about Nothing.
2. Loves Labour lost. *
3. Midsommer Nights Dreame.
4. The Merchant of Venice.
5. The First part of King Henry the fourth.