The Shakespeare Identity Problem

The Shakespeare Identity Problem is the last in a long line of investigations of ancient problems by Edward Furlong who won a scholarship to Oxford, took a degree in English, then another in History, accepted an offer of a Senior Research Fellowship at Chicago, but soon disenchanted with academe, moved to Canada where he became a Chartered Accountant and developed a taxation and auditing practice. After many years hard work and his usual voracious reading Edward began a return to academic pursuits this time on his own terms. Volume 1 (of 2 plus a third for index only) discusses Shakespeare's world, who he is said to be, the facts, and only facts, known about him, his 6 signatures and those of other experienced writers of his time. He used mostly a mediaeval more awkward writing form and had ink blots. Through Edward's many years witnessing signatures of persons from top society to charity cases he could see the presumed Shakespeare could not have written 36 plays, two book length poems, and 154 sonnets in flawless English because he did not have the skill to write it all down. The question then became who was the real author Shakespeare. It was not until Edward had ploughed through almost all Shakespeare's poems that sonnet 125 gave a clue, and analysis of what that tells us about who he was leads to the end of this volume.