Kansas Physician Confirms Howard Report

[TradeName]

G U T: The six degrees of Francis Bacon?


This book proposing Edward de Vere seems to draw on earlier Baconian works.

"Shakespeare" Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (New York: stokes, 1920), link
by J. Thomas Looney

Some more links from the bibliography mentioned above.

Between the appearance of Delia Bacon's magazine article and her book an English fellow published a letter proposing Francis Bacon as the author of Bacon's plays. He claimed to have heard nothing of Delia Bacon.

Was Lord Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?: A Letter to Lord Ellesmere (London: William Skeffington, 1856), link
by William Henry Smith

The Athenaeum, September 13, 1856, Pages 1133-1134

Review

Was Lord Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?


Notes and Queries, October 6, 1856, Page 267

Was Lord Shakespeare the Author of the Plays Attributed to Shakespeare?
CL Hopper


October 18, 1856, Page 320

Notes on Books


November 8, 1856, Page 369

Was Lord Shakespeare the Author of the Plays Attributed to Shakespeare?
Vox


Dec 27, 1856, Pages 503-504

Bacon And Shakespeare
W.H.S. [Smith]


Pages 504-505

Was Lord Shakespeare the Author of the Plays Attributed to Shakespeare?

R. Slocombe


Smith's pamphlet as published in a magazine.

Littell's Living Age, Volume 51, November 22, 1856, Pages 481-485

Was Lord Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?: A Letter to Lord Ellesmere
by William Henry Smith


Littell's Living Age, Volume 51, November 22, 1856, Pages 481-485

Was Lord Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?: A Letter to Lord Ellesmere
by William Henry Smith


Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 80, November, 1856, Pages 613-628

The Art of Cavilling

"All is Humbug"


The Athenaeum, January 24, 1857, Page 122

Miscellanea

Bacon and Shakespeare
by William Henry Smith


A book replying to Smith

William Shakespeare Not an Impostor (London: Routledge, 1857), link
by George Henry Townsend


The Athenaeum, February 14, 1857, Page 213

Our Literary Table

William Shakespeare Not an Impostor


The Literary Gazette, February 21, 1857, Page 181

Publications Received

William Shakespeare Not an Impostor


The Athenaeum, April 11, 1857, Pages 461-462

Reviews

The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded

[review of Delia Bacon's book]


Longer work by Smith

Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching Players, Playhouses, and Play-Writers in the Days of Elizabeth (London: John Russell Smith, 1857), link
by William Henry Smith, Sir Tobie Matthew, William Chadwick Neligan




The Literary Gazette, May 9, 1857, Pages 437-438

[reviews of Delia Bacon and Smith]


The National Review (London), Volume 5, July, 1857, Pages 72-82

The Alleged Non-Existence of Shakespeare

[review of DB book]


The Athenæum, August 15, 1857, Page 1036, Column 1

Smith, Delia Bacon, Hawthorne

[TradeName]

I found a link to a scan of a 1957 book on the various alleged Bacon ciphers.

The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined, link
1957

Author: William F. Friedman and Elizebeth S. Friedman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press



The first chapters lists some early works with passages on the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.

This book says that Shakespeare consulted a historian, according to "one of his intimate acquaintances."

An Essay against Too Much Reading (London: A. Moore, 1728), link

Pages 12-15


This work accuses Shakespeare of using a "common place book" he stole from the allegorical character, Genius.

The Life and Adventures of Common Sense: An Historical Allegory (London: Montagu Lawrence, 1769), link
By Herbert Lawrence

Pages 145-149

The protagonist of this tale, a pig (at times in human form) claims to be the true author of Hamlet, Othello, As You Like It, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The Story of the Learned Pig (London: R. Jameson, 1788), link
By An officer of the Royal Navy

Pages 35-39


The Friednam book also relates a claim that a James Wilmot was the first to suggest Bacon as the author, but this claim has now been called into question. See here.

[TradeName]

The Shakespeare/Bacon bibliography lists a novel, Harrington, written by a Delia Bacon fanboy named William O'Connor. I couldn't find the novel but here are a review and a letter about the book.

The National Quarterly Review (New York), Volume 2, December, 1860, Pages 156-159

Notices and criticisms

Belles Lettres

Harrington; A Story of True Love. By the author of “What Cheer,” “The Ghost,” “A Christmas Story,” “A Tale of Lynn,” &c. 12mo, pp. 558. Boston: Thayer & Eldridge. 1860.


The Round Table (new York), Volume 4, Novemver 17, 1866, Pages 255-256

Letters to the Editor

The Authorship of Shakespeare

Richard J. Hinton


A book with a Stratfordian chapter.

The Biography and Bibliography of Shakespeare (1863), link
By Henry George Bohn

Pages 291-300

On the Identity of Shakespeare as a Writer of Plays


The first, second, third and fourth editions of a Baconian work by a Missouri judge.


The Authorship of Shakespeare (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1866)
By Nathaniel Holmes, link


The Authorship of Shakespeare (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1867, 2nd edition), link
by Nathaniel Holmes

The Authorship of Shakespeare (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1876, 3rd edition), link
By Nathaniel Holmes


The Authorship of Shakespeare, Volume 1 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1887, 4th edition), link
by Nathaniel Holmes


The Authorship of Shakespeare, Volume 2 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1887, 4th edition), link
by Nathaniel Holmes


Reviews of Holmes.

The Round Table, Volume 4, October 27, 1866, Pages 208-209

Did Shakespeare Write Shakespeare?


The North American Review, Volume 104, January, 1867, Pages 276-278

Holmes' Authorship of Shakespeare

[TradeName]

Wyman published 9 addenda to his 1884 Bacon/Shakespeare bibliography, ending on a sour note in 1890.

Shakespeariana, Volume 3, March, 1886, Pages 118-126

Recent Bacon-Shakespeare Literature

Part I

by William Henry Wyman


Shakespeariana, Volume 3, April, 1886, Pages 163-167

Recent Bacon-Shakespeare Literature

Part II

by William Henry Wyman


Shakespeariana, Volume 3, July, 1886, Pages 302-311

Recent Bacon-Shakespeare Literature

Part III

by William Henry Wyman


Shakespeariana, Volume 4, April, 1887, Pages 160-165

Recent Bacon-Shakespeare Literature

Part IV [mislabeled in magazine as Part III]

by William Henry Wyman


Shakespeariana, Volume 4, December, 1887, Pages 552-559

Recent Bacon-Shakespeare Literature

Part V

by William Henry Wyman


Shakespeariana, Volume 5, May, 1888, Pages 205-211

Recent Bacon-Shakespeare Literature

Part VI

by William Henry Wyman


Shakespeariana, Volume 5, December, 1888, Pages 547-552

Recent Bacon-Shakespeare Literature

Part VII

by William Henry Wyman


Poet Lore, Volume 1, February, 1889, Pages 69-82

Recent Bacon-Shakespeare Literature

Part VIII

by William Henry Wyman


Poet Lore, Volume 2, 1890, Pages 613-616

Recent Bacon-Shakespeare Literature

Part IX

by William Henry Wyman

The Bacon-shakespeare discussion has practically come to an end. While there are numbers of Baconians, the theory has not made any lasting impression on the world at large. In taking leave of the subject, the compiler submits, for the information of those who have been interested in it, a list of thirty-six additional titles, making four hundred and sixty in all. The usual notes and comments are omitted, partly from want of time to prepare them, but mainly from the lack of general interest in the subject-matter.

[...]

----end

[TradeName]

A book about the "Northumberland manuscript", and a description from the Wyman bibliogrpahy.

A Conference of Pleasure Composed for Some Festive Occasion about the Year 1592 (London: Longmans, Green, 1870), link
by Francis Bacon, James Spedding


Bibliography of the Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy: With Notes and Extracts (Cincinnati: Samuel C. Cox, 1884)
by William Henry Wyman

Pages 32-33

This was edited by Mr. Spedding from a portion of the Northumberland MSS. referred to by Judge Holmes (see pages 657-682, edition of 1876). These MSS. were found in 1867, in a box of old papers, which had probably lain for nearly a century unopened, in the library of Northumberland House in London. With them was a MS. title-page, indicating that the paper book which it covered had once contained, in addition to the four speeches composing the Conference of Pleasure, several other of Bacon's orations and essays Also, Richard II, Richard III, Asmund and Cornelia, Thomas Nashe's Isle of Dogs, and papers by other authors. Of these, only a part remained when the document was discovered, the Shakespeare plays being amongst the missing. The MSS. were in bad condition, from fire and the ravages of time—the edges being badly burned, probably from a fire which occured in Northumberland House in 1780.

Accompanying Mr. Spedding's book is a fac-simile of this MS. title-page, and it is on this that the interest turns. It shows, in addition to the original table of contents, a mass of scribblings, written all over the sheet, containing a variety of names, phrases, quotations, idly and carelessly written, apparently by some copyist or clerk. Amongst these scribblings occurs the name of Frauncis Bacon several times, and that of William Shakespeare eight or nine times repeated. As to its date, Mr. Spedding says: "All I can say is that I find nothing, either in these later scribblings, or what remains of the book itself, to indicate a date later than the reign of Elizabeth." Further, that he finds no traces of the handwriting of Bacon.

The reference to this question is to be found in the introduction, pages xxii-xxv.

Mr. Spedding discovers nothing in these MSS. to disturb his belief in the Shakespearian authorship, and regards it as a simple coincidence that the productions of Shakespeare and Bacon should be copied in the same book, and their names scribbled on the title-page. "At the present time," he says, "if the waste leaf on which a law-stationer's apprentice tries his pens were examined, I should expect to find on it the name of the poet, novelist, dramatic author, or actor of the day, mixed with snatches of the last new song," etc. * * * "And that is exactly the sort of thing we have here." Judge Holmes, however, ventures the suggestion that they may have been made in Bacon's own study, by his own amanuensis; that this fact wouid account for the two names being scribbled on the title-leaf by one in the secret; and that Bacon himself may have destroyed the missing Shakespeare plays before his death, by way of suppressing the evidence of his authorship.

----end

Wyman describes the following as a "noted article."

Fraser's Magazine, August, 1874, Pages 164-178

Who Wrote Shakespeare?
by J. V. P.

[TradeName]

Two more summaries of the controversy.

Scribners Monthly, Volume 9, April, 1975, Pages 743-754

The Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy
by E. O. Vaile (per table of contents)


Shakespeare: The Man and the Book, Part 1 (London: Truber, 1877), link
By Clement Mansfield Ingleby

Pages 38-73

The Authorship of the Plays of Shakespeare

[TradeName]

Appleton Morgan Part I

The series of articles by Appleton Morgan, an attorney who ended up in New York City.

Appletons' Journal, Volum3 6, Fenruary, 1879, Pages 112-126

The Shakespearean Myth

by Appleton Morgan


Appletons' Journal, Volum3 6, June, 1879, Pages 481-497

The Shakespearean Myth

Second Paper.--The Appeal to History

by Appleton Morgan


Appletons' Journal, Volume 8, June 1880, Pages 481-497

The Shakespearean Myth

Concluding Paper.--Extra-Shakespearean Theories, Part I

by Appleton Morgan


Appletons' Journal, Volume 9, July 1880, Pages 14-35

The Shakespearean Myth

Concluding Paper.--Extra-Shakespearean Theories, Part II

by Appleton Morgan



A response to Morgan's first article.

Appletons' Journal, Volum3 6, April, 1879, Pages 336-344

"Shakespeare and the Musical Glasses"

by Myron B. Benton


Morgan's book elaborating on his articles.

The Shakespearean Myth: William Shakespeare and Circumstantial Evidence (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1881), link
by Appleton Morgan

[TradeName]

Appleton Morgan Part II

Morgan's response to critics of his book.

Some Shakespearean Commentators (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1882), link
By Appleton Morgan


Morgan's serialized memoirs includes an overview of the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy before his own involvement.

New-Shakespeareana, Volume 6, April-July, 1907, Pages 41-56

The Development of the Baconian Hypothesis in the United States
(A Chapter of Dr. Morgan's Autobiography)

by Appleton Morgan


New-Shakespeareana, Volume 6, October, 1907, Pages 93-121

The Development of the Baconian Hypothesis in the United States:
Judge Nathaniel Holmes--"The Shakespearean Myth--Ignatius Donnelly
A Further Chapter of Dr. Morgan's Autobiogrpahy

by Appleton Morgan


In this chapter Morgan discusses his treatment in a book by our friend William Douglas O'Connor. Morgan complains that O'Connor called him "a Jack the Ripper."

The extract, as does O'Connor's book, gives the date of O'Connor's death as 1887. It was actually 1889.

New-Shakespeareana, Volume 7, April, 1908, Pages 33-54

The Development of the Baconian Hypothesis in the United States:
The Great Cryptogram and Its Debacle--Judge Nathaniel Holmes Declines to Accept Mr. Donnelly
A Further Chapter of Dr. Morgan's Autobiogrpahy

by Appleton Morgan

Page 38

But the storm my guilty conscience had forseen, however, was not, to be long delayed in the breaking. One morning in getting down to my office, I found piled on my table twenty-three copies of a square, twelve mo. pamphlet, entitled “Mr. Donnelly’s Reviewers, By William D. O’Connor, 1889, Chicago, New York San Francisco, Belford Clarke and Company.” On opening one of the copies I found a page “In Memoriam,” stating that Mr. O’Connor had died on the morning of May 9th, 1887. This certainly induced a tender and sympathetic reading 0f the posthumous work of a man I had known so recently in life, and I proceeded to the body of the book almost with reverence. What was my surprise to find that of its ninety pages, thirty-two were devoted to vitulperation and onslaught upon myself, and that the gentleman who was my guest at “Old Tom’s” and “The Studio," and who had assured me that I was the Cid-Campeador of the controversy: “the most brilliant advocate the anti-Shakespeare Theory ever had,” “the keen witted lawyer,” “the wiper-away in one swoop of triviality and cavil,” now declared me really: “A Mud-witted old dufier,” “a Dealer in shallow gufi,” “a leader of anti-Baconian Banditti,” “a Dullard,” “a Dunce,” “a Snarleyow,” “a Persifleur,” “an ossified intelligence,” “a Philistine,” “a man without perception or recepetivity, “one subject to his humours, to moods of resistance or east winds,” “one without generosity or equity,” (“a diminuendo reminding of the warning that, if one carelessly permitted himself to indulge in murder, he might bring up by smoking cigarettes l”) “a Jack the Ripper,” “a Scoundrel who by eggregious flubdub was trying to kill Mr. Donnelly’s magnificent discovery” and so on. The strain however, was varied by pastoral elegance, such as: “All Mr. Morgan wants is a broad hat of plated straw, blue ribbon, a crook. and some sheep, to be a molly-coddle, and an orthodox Shakespearean.” (This referring to my unfortunately having said somewhere that the diction of Mr. Donnelly’s cipher narrative would hardly remind its readers of Lord Bacon’s stately and sumptuous English.)

----end

The book of which Morgan complained. On page 8 O'Connor calls literary critics as a class "the tribe of Jack the Ripper."

Mr. Donnelly's Reviewers (Chicago: Belford, Clarke, 1889), link
By William Douglas O'Connor


New-Shakespeareana, Volume 8, May, 1909, Pages 37-60

Other Shakespearean Ciphers
Mrs. Ashmead Windle. Dr. Orville E. Owen. Mr. Samuel Cabot. Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup. The Verulam Society.
A Further Chapter of Dr. Morgan's Autobiogrpahy

by Appleton Morgan

[Mayerling]

Hi TradeName,

Nothing to really contribute to this magnificent side issue of the "Baconian Theory on Shakespeare" and "the Great Cryptogram". Ignatius Donnelly is quite a character in his own right. A leading populist politician (and Minnesota Congressman for awhile) he is the only member of Congress I can recall in it's history who actually was involved in discussing such (dare I suggest it) pseudo-scientific/historical subjects as the authorship of Shakespeare's plays AND the existence of the island or continent of Atlantis. Perhaps other political figures in the U.S. did think about these things in their spare time, but only Donnelly wrote books (both in print to this day - the "Atlantis" book is called "Atlantis: the Anti-deluvian World" and I believe Dover Publications put out an edition). He also was interested (being from Scandenavian ancestry in part, as well as from Minnesota) in the authenticity of the so-called Kensington Rune-Stone found there in the 19th Century, supposedly (if genuine) proving the Vikings really got into the center of North America.

Donnelly (like all Congressmen) had membership access to the Library of Congress, and made full use of it in his couple of terms in Congress. However, he was a committed reformer, and would support (like a good Populist of the 1880s and 1890s) the "Free Silver" issue to aid farmers in debt by increasing (at a 14:1 ratio rate) silver coinage to gold coinage in the U.S., He wrote several novels, some marred by anti-Semitism (directed at stereotypical "foreign" Jewish bankers who bribed Congress to support only a gold standard). However, he must have reconsidered this - in one novel, "Caesar's Column" he has most of the Jews return to what is now Israel (and Palestine) and make it a successful and wealthy country. In 1900 he was the Populist candidate for Vice President (running with the Populist and Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan, but only with Bryan on the Populist ticket).

I do recall one well known political figure of the 19th Century (besides Donnelly, but not American) who got involved with the "Atlantis" discussion to some extent - and he is one who has tread the threads of this board on many occasions. He also tried to reform prostitutes he took home - and got into some stupid trouble but not permanently damaging as a result. it's "the people's William", the "Grand Old Man" (or as the Tories would say after Khartoum fell, the "Murderer of Gordon") Mr. Gladstone. Prime Minister William Gladstone apparently read Donnelly's Atlantis book, and sent an order to some of the naval ships to look for traces of the lost continent. Commendable use of the navy, not much in use in the 1880s.

Such use of naval craft for these ideas is not totally unusual. Theodore Roosevelt had long been fascinated by naval power, and his honor's thesis in Harvard for "history", "The Naval War of 1812" is still in print. As a reward for supporting William McKinley in 1896 against William Jennings Bryan, TR was appointed to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy (under John Long), and basically ran the department - his greatest accomplishments being getting funding for Professor Samuel Langley's flying machined ("the Aerodrome") in 1896 after reading of Langley's initial success with a model on the Potomac River (later, as most aviation students recall, Langley's full size model crashed in two attempted flights with a pilot in October and December 1903, the second a week or so before two brothers successfully flew a bi-plane at Kitty Hawk, N.C., without public funding), and (more successfully) sending Commodore George Dewey's Pacific Squadron to attack the Spanish fleet at Manilla Bay (which was our first victory in the Spanish American War). TR, when he achieved the Presidency (and kept John Long on as his Secretary of the Navy, as a reward for giving him so much power under McKinley) retained his interest in naval affairs, and made (for awhile) the U.S. Navy second in size to the British Navy (although Germany soon surplanted us) , and would send "the Great White Fleet" of chosen battlewagons around the globe from 1907 to February 1909, as an advertisement of our being a real world power. But he also used the U.S.S. Brooklyn to go on a special voyage to France in 1905, after the remains of John Paul Jones were found in a French graveyard, to bring them back to the U.S. (where they were interned in a special memorial tomb at Annapolis in Maryland). Finally he sent some battleship to the recently acquired Hawaiian Islands on a search for possible traces or even survivors of the crew of the U.S.S. Levant, a frigate we lost in 1860 while on a voyage to the then Kingdom of Hawaii. It had succeeded in accomplishing it's mission, but it hit a violent storm at sea, and only some wreckage was found near the island of Hijo in Hawaii. Rumors that there might still be survivors on the island (even in 1903) reached TR, and he sent this mission, which found nothing.

Jeff

[TradeName]

Thanks for the background on Donnelly, Jeff.

Appleton Morgan mentioned Catharine Windle in his memoirs and Wyman listed her in his bibliography.

Address to the New Shakespere Society of London, Discovery of Lord Verulam's Undoubted Authorship of the "Shakspere" Works (San Francisco: 1881), link
by Catharine F. Ashmead Windle


Report to the British Museum on Behalf of the Annals of Great Britain ... (San Francisco: 1882), link
by Catharine F. Ashmead Windle


Wyman listed this in his bibliography because Ingleby mentions Delia Bacon's belief that there were manuscripts hidden in Shakespeare's grave.
Ingleby was interested in exhuming Shakespeare in part to verify a death mask as being that of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's Bones: The Proposal to Disinter Them (London: Trubner, 1883), link
by Clement Mansfield Ingleby

Ingleby cites this book by an artist who examined the death mask.

A Study of Shakespeare's Portraits (London: 1876), link
by William Page


Ingleby lists this article about the alleged theft of Shakepeare's skull in 1794. This article was also mentioned in a 2016 NYT report indicating that a radar examination of the grave suggested that the skull was missing.

The Argosy, Volume 28, October, 1879, Pages 268-277

How Shakespeare's Skull was Stolen
Circa 1794
by a Warwickshire man

[TradeName]

Constance (Mrs. Henry) Pott Part I

Constance Pott wrote a long work analyzing the Promus, a manuscript in which Francis Bacon compiled aphorisms, proverbs and epigrams. Pott claimed that many of these can be found in the Shakespeare plays. There is a preface, which does not endorse the Baconian viewpoint, by Abbott, the author of Flatland.

The Promus of Formularies and Elegancies: (Being Private Notes, Circ. 1594, hitherto unpublished) (London: Longmans, Green, 1883), link
by Mrs. Henry Pott, Francis Bacon


Pott says that one group of sayings in the Promus came from this 16th century work.

The Proverbs and Epigrams of John Heywood (A. D. 1562) (Spenser Society, 1867), link
By John Heywood

A review of Pott's book by an American scholar. His concluding summary features an unkind characterization of the Baconians.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 51, April, 1883, Pages 507-521

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze
by Richard Grant White

Page 521

"[...] this Bacon-Shakespeare notion is an infatuation; a literary bee in the bonnets of certain ladies of both sexes, which should make them the objects of tender care and sympathy."


White's essay was included in a posthumous collection.

Studies in Shakespeare (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1886), Pages 151-182
by Richard Grant White

The Shakespeare-Bacon Craze

Our Friend William O'Connor defends Pott and attacks White.

Hamlet's Note-book (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1886), link
by William Douglas O'Connor

A collection of O'Connor's fiction features a story about the other Bacon (Roger).

Three Tales: The Ghost, The Brazen Android, The Carpenter (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1892), link
By William Douglas O'Connor

[TradeName]

Constance (Mrs. Henry) Pott Part II

Pott's later work connected Bacon to the Rosicrucians.


Francis Bacon and His Secret Society (Chicago: Francis J. Schulte, 1891), link
by Mrs. Henry Pott


Part I of the following lists 32 reasons for believing Bacon wrote the plays; part II is a comparative chronology of Bacon and Shakespeare.

Did Francis Bacon Write "Shakespeare"? (London: Robert Banks, 1893), link
by Mrs. Henry Pott

Part II


Quotations from Bacon and Shakespeare arranged by topic.

Obiter Dicta of Bacon and Shakespeare on Manners, Mind, Morals (London: Robert Banks, 1900), link
by Francis Bacon, Mrs. Henry Pott, William Shakespeare

[Pcdunn]

Re "How Shakespeare's Skull was Stolen / Circa 1794 / by a Warwickshire man"-- I recently watched this on public television:

http://www.pbs.org/show/shakespeares-tomb/

The link has online videos of part of the discussion about the missing skull and the search with ground-penetrating radar.
They also discussed how the idea might have gotten started because the marker-stone above his grave seems too short for a full-sized man.

[TradeName]

Ignatius Donnelly

Interesting link, Pat. Did they conclude that the spare skull could have belonged to Shakespeare?


In his memoirs, Appleton Morgan says that most of the text in this article came from a letter sent to Morgan by Ignatius Donnelly.

The Nineteenth Century, Volume 19, May, 1886, Pages 697-709

Mr. Donnelly's Shakespeare Cipher
by Percy M. Wallace


Two part article by Donnelly.

The North American Review, Volume 144, June, 1887, Pages 572-582

The Shakespeare Myth

Part I

by Ignatius Donnelly



The North American Review, Volume 145, July, 1887, Pages 57-68

The Shakespeare Myth

Part II

by Ignatius Donnelly


Hugo Black applied Francis Bacon's "bi-lateral cipher" to a transcription of a version of Shakespeare's epitaph written in mixed case. The editor of the North American Review asked Edward Gordon Clark to check Black's work.

The North American Review, Volume 145, October, 1887, Pages 422-434

"FRA BA WRT EAR AY"
by Hugo Black


Pages 426-434

"BAKON, SHAXPERE--WE"
by Edward Gordon Clark


Clark produced a book further elaborating on the "epitaph cipher."

The Tale of the Shakspere Epitaph (Chicago: Belford, Clarke, 1888), link
by Edward Gordon Clark


Two articles previewing Donnelly's book in the Daily Telegraph elicited enough letters to fill a book.

Dethroning Shakspere: A Selection of Letters Contributed to the "Daily Telegraph" (London: Sampson, Low, 1888), link
edited by Robert Masters Theobald


The first volume of Donnelly's book makes the Baconian case without relying on the alleged cipher, which is presented in the second volume.

The Great Cryptogram: Francis Bacon's Cipher in the So-Called Shakespeare Plays, Volume 1 (London: Sampson Low, 1888), link
By Ignatius Donnelly


The Great Cryptogram: Francis Bacon's Cipher in the So-called Shakespeare Plays, Volume 2 (London: Sampson Low, 1888), link
By Ignatius Donnelly


Donnelly returns to the cryptogram and has a go at the epitaph. He also drags in the Rosicrucians.

The Cipher in the Plays and on the Tombstone (Minneapolis: The Verulam Publishing Company, 1899), link
By Ignatius Donnelly


Donnelly mentions the chapter on cryptography in this children's book as an inspiration. The chapter includes a discussion of Bacon's "bi-lateral cipher."

Every Boy's Book: A Complete Encyclopædia of Sports and Amusements (London: George Routledge, 1869), Pages 674-681
edited by Edmund Routledge

Cryptography

[TradeName]

W. F. C. Wigston

Wigston wrote books in the "Bacon was a Rosicrucian" vein. His first book dismisses Delia Bacon's theory as unproven, but he later came to accept Donnelly's cryptogram.

A New Study of Shakespeare (London: Trubner, 1884), link
by William Francis C. Wigston



Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians (London: George Redway, 1888), link
by William Francis C. Wigston



Hermes Stella: Or, Notes and Jottings Upon the Bacon Cipher (London: George Redway, 1890), link
by William Francis C. Wigston



Francis Bacon, Poet, Prophet, Philosopher, Versus Phantom Captain Shakespeare (London: Kegan Paul, 1891), link
by William Francis C. Wigston



The Columbus of Literature: Or, Bacon's New World of Sciences (Chicago: F. J. Schulte, 1892), link
By William Francis C. Wigston