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And then there were none: Winnowing the Shakespeare claimants

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Abstract

The Shakespeare Clinic has developed 51 computer tests of Shakespeare play authorship and 14 of poem authorship, and applied them to 37 claimed “true Shakespeares,” to 27 plays of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, and to several poems of unknown or disputed authorship. No claimant, and none of the apocryphal plays or poems, matched Shakespeare. Two plays and one poem from the Shakespeare Canon,Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, Part 3, and “A Lover's Complaint,” do not match the others.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Claremont McKenna College, 91711, Claremont, CA, U.S.A.

    Ward E. Y. Elliott & Robert J. Valenza

Authors
  1. Ward E. Y. Elliott
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  2. Robert J. Valenza
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Additional information

Ward Elliott is the Burnet C. Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions at Claremont McKenna College. He is interested in, and has published in, almost everything,including politics, pollution, transportation, smog and Shakespeare.

Robert J. Valenza is W.M. Keck Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Claremont McKenna College. He has written research articles in mathematics and metaphysics, as well as stylometrics. He is author ofLinear Algebra: An Introduction to Abstract Mathematics (Springer-Verlag, 1993).

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Elliott, W.E.Y., Valenza, R.J. And then there were none: Winnowing the Shakespeare claimants. Comput Hum 30, 191–245 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00055107

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