DVS Articles & Reviews

Listed in alphabetical order by author surname. Date of DVS Newsletter issue is in brackets.

Jeremy Crick and Dorna Bewley

The ‘Ashbourne’ Portrait of ‘Shakespeare’ (Summer 2007)

New research on the painting’s provenance strengthens the case that it is the lost portrait of
Edward de Vere by Cornelius Ketel.

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Jeremy Crick

Elizabeth and ffrancis Trentham of Rocester Abbey – Part 2 (February 2007)

Part Two of the family history of Edward de vere, Earl of Oxford’s second wife and the strategic
importance of the Trentham archive in the search for Oxford’s literary fragments.

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Jeremy Crick

Elizabeth and ffrancis Trentham of Rocester Abbey – Part 3 (2007)

Part Three of the family history of Edward de vere, Earl of Oxford’s second wife and the strategic
importance of the Trentham archive in the search for Oxford’s literary fragments.

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Robert Detobel

An Accident of Note: Part 2. (Continued from June 2008 newsletter)

Why did George Chapman Bear Witness to Oxford in The Revenge of Bussy d’Ambois? Answering this question, Robert Detobel argues for a Stoic dimension to Hamlet.

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Kevin Gilvary

‘Shakespeare’ Identified in Edward de Vere the Seventeeth Earl of Oxford (by J. Thomas Looney, 1920) This article forms the centrepiece of an issue of the DVS newsletter dedicated to the centenary of the book published by J. Thomas Looney in 1920. (July 2020)

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Kevin Gilvary

A Brief Case for Oxford and FAQs (October 2015)

A Brief Case for Oxford: J. T. Looney, ‘Shakespeare’ Identified (1920); Short Life of Edward de Vere
(1550-1604): Oxford as the author of Hamlet; Oxford as the author of Twelfth Night; Oxford as the
author of King Lear; FAQs.

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Kevin Gilvary

Edward de Vere: This is Your Life

The text of an address given at the Chartered Insurance Institute, London, which hosted the
Summer (June) 2004 DVS meeting, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of the Earl of Oxford.

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Gary Goldstein

Shakespeare’s Native Tongue (November 2009)

Richard Malim requested that this be reprinted in the DVS newsletter for this reason: Stratfordians
perennially evoke the use of Warwickshire dialiect in Shakespeare's writings as proof that he was a
native of that region. Gary Goldstein’s refutation of their argument is therefore also worthy of
perennial perusal. We are grateful to Gary for permission to reprint it here.

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W. Ron Hess (assisted by Jan Scheffer, A. Colin Wright and Concetta Thibideaux)

A Wedding Joust in Trebizond: Commedia Erudita and Sinister Politics in 1575

First published in the SOF newsletter, Summer 2018.

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Philip Johnson

The Best is Silence (January 2004)

What happens when Stratfordians come across evidence that militates against the man from
Stratford? Philip Johnson, who gave this paper at the London meeting of the DVS in May 2003,
shows how biographers simply omit unpleasant details.

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Eddi Jolly

Voyages de Shakespeare en France et en Italie (June 2003)

An overlooked masterpiece: A consideration of George Lambin’s book published in 1962.
This paper was given at the AGM held at Birkbeck College, London, May 2003. Should any readers of this article wish to read an English translation of George Lambin’s book, they may wish to research Oxfordian scholar Ron Hess who published a critiqued translation in an appendix to his book, The Dark Side of Shakespeare, Vol. I (ISBN 0-595-24777-6), available on Amazon.

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Dr Noemi Magri

Notes for the article ‘Shakespeare’s Illyria and Bohemia’ in the June 2007 Newsletter.
Noemi Magri's article was shorn of its notes for both technical and special reasons.
They are now reproduced below (October 2007).

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Dr Noemi Magri

Shakespeare and Italian Renaissance Painting:

The three wanton pictures in The Taming of the Shrew. Dott. Noemi Magri of Mantua gave the following paper to The de Vere Society meeting (May 2005).

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Dr Noemi Magri

Places in Shakespeare: Belmont and thereabouts (June 2003)

The purpose of the present paper is to show that Belmont is a real place, though differently called
in Italian: its identification has been made possible by the precise geographical information and a
specific historical reference given in the play: it is not geography of the imagination, and the
historical allusion refers to a contemporary event: it is not Shakespeare’s creation. This essay has
also been published in Great Oxford I - Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl
of Oxford (1550-1604). General editor: Richard Malim and published by The de Vere Society.

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Richard Malim

Oxford the Actor (January 2004)

Responsible critics such as Professors Bate and Wells have sought to dismiss the authorship claims
of Oxford by suggesting that he had no ‘hands-on’ connection with the stage. Indeed, Professor Bate
seems to suggest that this element provides incontrovertible evidence of the authorship of William
Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon.

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Richard Malim

Shakspere: The Irrelevant Life (DVS, undated)

In a study of Shakespeare, William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon 1564-1616 should barely merit
a five-line footnote. However, because literary ‘orthodoxy’ persists in giving him pride of a somewhat
reduced place (compared to that properly due to Oxford/Shakespeare) in the history of English and
universal literature, Malim reviews his rôle in rather more detail.

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Peter Moore

The Stella Cover-up (February 2010)

‘I am delighted to have obtained permission from Gary Goldstein to reproduce one of Peter Moore’s
shorter articles here in the Newsletter. I hope it will whet readers’ appetites for [his] book’ (DVS Ed.):
The Lame Storyteller, Poor and Despised: Studies in Shakespeare (reviewed by R. Malim in the same issue).

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Marion Peel

John Shakspere’s Finances (October 2013)

Considerably more is known from the public records about John Shakspere than about his son William.
DVS member Marion Peel, who lives in nearby Worcester, has been finding out more so as to explore
the possible influence of the father’s financial dealings on the son’s business career in the theatre.

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Tony Pointon

The Case against William of Stratford (October 2015)

There are many reasons to doubt that a man from Stratford wrote the works of Shakespeare.
Here are twenty such arguments, prepared by Tony Pointon. Further details can be found in
Professor A. J. Pointon’s book The Man Who Was Never Shakespeare (Parapress, 2011).
Also see review below (Reviews, 2011) by Alexander Waugh in the Wall Street Journal.

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The Rt. Hon. J. Enoch Powell

Francis Meres and the Authorship Question (April 1988)

Report of a presentation to The de Vere Society in February 1988. See also Alexander Waugh’s YouTube video Francis Meres Knew in which he acknowledges Enoch Powell as the first of several scholars and Oxfordians involved in deciphering Mere’s Palladis Tamia (listed under Media/YouTube). Powell refers to his presentation to the DVS in The Shakespeare Mystery (listed under Media/Film & Videos).

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Alan Robinson

The Real William Shaksper (January 2004)

The facts known about Shaksper’s life are sparse but very little analysis has been done even of these.
Many deductions and inferences can be made with a fair chance of arriving close to the truth.
This paper was given at the Henley meeting of the DVS in Autumn 2003. A fully referenced version is published in Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604 (Chapter 26, pp.237-243).

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Jan Scheffer

A Tirade about a Joust in Trebizond: How was Edward De Vere Involved In this Example of Commedia Erudita In 1575? (April 2020)

Provides insight into what Oxford and his friends were up to in Italy.

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Alexander Waugh

Praise for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (January 2018)

Modern Stratfordian orthodoxy attempts to undermine the case for Oxford as Shakespeare by
insisting that he was a dishonourable man, a poor scholar and a feeble poet. The following selection
of allusions to him amply demonstrates that before he was recommended as the most likely author
of the Shakespearean canon in 1920, literary historians and many of his contemporaries thought otherwise.

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Alexander Waugh

Oxford as ‘Shakespeare’ (April 2018)

This article is reproduced from a new scholarly book, My Shakespeare, edited by William Leahy and published by EER. The anthology also prints new pieces arguing for Marlowe (Ros Barber), for Mary Sidney (Robin Williams), for Francis Bacon (Barry Clarke), for Stratford-Shaksper (Alan Nelson), for Henry Neville (Rubinstein, Casson & Ewald), as well as thoughtful contributions from William Leahy (an amalgamated Shakespeare) and Diana Price (Stratford-Shakspere as broker).

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Reviews

Reviews 2020

Reviews 2019

Reviews 2018

Reviews 2017

Reviews 2016

Reviews 2014

Reviews 2013

Reviews 2012

Reviews 2011

Reviews 2010

Reviews 2009

Reviews 2008

Reviews 2007

Shakespeare Marlowe Jonson: New Directions in Biography (Eds. Mulryne and Kozuka)

Reviewer: Richard Malim

Reviewer’s note: With a bit more space I would have pointed out more clearly that ‘Sparrow’ in Guy of Warwick and ‘Shaxberd’ in the Court Revels record looks like the same sort of denigration: that Buc’s ‘teste’ reference is to a ‘minister’ (a Churchman) acting in a play, a suggestion so ludicrous as to render the suggested Stratford connection a joke (which it was, and whose?).

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Reviews 2006

Reviews 2005

Reviews 2004

Monstrous Adversary

By Alan Nelson

Observations by Kevin Gilvary, Philip Johnson and Eddi Jolly. “Since 1920, Oxford has been touted by amateur historians and conspiracy theorists as the true author of the poems and plays of William Shakespeare. It has become a matter of urgency to measure the real Oxford against the myth created by his apologists, and uncritically embraced by television documentaries, by playwrights and by the popular press …” Quoted by the publishers on the back cover from the author’s introduction (omitting the final ‘even by justices of the United States Supreme Court’).

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Demonography 101

By Peter Moore

[An extended Critique taken from pages 288-311 of The Lame Storyteller, Poor and Despised – see Publications “WE RECOMMEND” – by kind permission of Verlag Uwe Laugwitz.]

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DVS Articles & Reviews