Shakespeare authorship question biography

Some people say that some of the works attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon were not actually written by him. The scientific argument behind this claim is known as the Shakespeare authorship question.

Anti-Stratfordians say Shakespeare of Stratford was a fake name to hide the identity of the real author or authors. These authors did not want their real names to become public, for various reasons.^[1] Although the idea has attracted much public interest,^[2][a] all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a conspiracy theory and for the most part acknowledge it only to rebut or disparage the claims, for example James Shapiro wrote a book arguing that Shakespeare was the person who wrote Shakespeare’s plays.^[3]

Shakespeare's authorship was first questioned in the middle of the 19th century.

^[4] At that time the idea that Shakespeare was the greatest w