The 17th Earl of Oxford
The Major Contenders
1.Francis Bacon: The first major alternative; claimed to have used ciphers and hidden legal codes to hide his authorship.
Christopher Marlowe: The “faked death” theory; suggests he survived the 1593 Deptford brawl and wrote from exile.
Edward de Vere (17th Earl of Oxford): The current favorite; proponents point to his life parallels with Hamlet and his travels in Italy.
William Stanley (6th Earl of Derby): Suggested because he was known to be “penning comedies for the common players” in the 1590s.
The Aristocratic Committee
Mary Sidney (Countess of Pembroke): A highly educated writer; some believe her “Sidney Circle” produced the works.
Roger Manners (5th Earl of Rutland): Claimed because he visited the specific locations in Denmark and Italy featured in the plays.
Henry Wriothesley (3rd Earl of Southampton): The patron of the sonnets; some argue he was more than just a dedicated supporter.
Robert Devereux (2nd Earl of Essex): A theory that the “tragic hero” nature of the plays reflects his political rise and fall.
Queen Elizabeth I: The theory that the Virgin Queen wrote the plays to express political views she couldn’t state as monarch.
King James I: A fringe claim based on his interest in the occult and the “Scottish” influence in Macbeth.
William Herbert (3rd Earl of Pembroke): One of the “Incomparable Paire of Brethren” to whom the First Folio was dedicated.
Philip Herbert (4th Earl of Montgomery): The other “Paired” brother; suggested as part of a family writing syndicate.
The “Group” and Intellectual Theories The Rosicrucians: A secret society alleged to have used the plays to disseminate esoteric wisdom.
1.Sir Walter Raleigh: Often included in “School of Night” group theories due to his poetic skill and adventurous life.
Fulke Greville: A poet and statesman whose biography of Sidney and political tragedies are used as stylistic evidence.
Ben Jonson: While usually Shakespeare’s rival/friend, some argue he was the “mastermind” or editor of the entire canon.
Thomas Nashe: A contemporary pamphleteer; his “extemporal vein” is seen by some in the early comedies.
Robert Greene: Famously called Shakespeare an “upstart crow,” which some interpret as a hint that Shakespeare was a plagiarist.
Thomas Lodge: A writer and sailor whose Rosalynde was a source for As You Like It.
George Peele: A playwright frequently cited in stylometric studies as a possible co-author of Titus Andronicus.
International & Linguistic Claims
Michelangelo Florio: An Italian Protestant whose son John Florio translated Montaigne; suggested to explain the Italian settings.
John Florio: (Son of the above) An Elizabethan linguist; some believe he provided the “erudition” for the plays.
Sheikh Zubayr (Sheikh al-Speir): An Arab theory (popularized by Gaddafi) suggesting the author was a Middle Eastern immigrant.
Miguel de Cervantes: A theory based on the “Cardenio” lost play and the fact that both authors died on the same date.
Emilia Lanier: One of the “Dark Lady” candidates; some argue she was a primary author or collaborator.
Anne Hathaway: A fringe feminist theory suggesting William’s wife was the true creative force in the household.
The Obscure, Fictional, & Satirical
Another man of the same name”: A famous quip suggesting the author was a different William Shakespeare.
Patrick O’Toole: A satirical Irish claim that the name is a corruption of “Shaker O’Spear.”
The Klingons: From Star Trek VI; the claim that one must read him in the “original Klingon.”
The Doctor (Doctor Who): Various episodes imply the Time Lord provided the inspiration or the actual lines.
Infinite Monkeys: The statistical theory that given enough time, a monkey at a typewriter would produce Hamlet.
Malcolm X: Briefly mentioned in historical debates regarding the “black” or “outsider” influence in the texts.
Lewis Carroll: A satirical “cipher” theory used to show that any text can be “proven” to be written by anyone.
Daniel Defoe: An anachronistic claim used to mock the lack of historical rigor in some authorship theories.
Thomas Heywood: A contemporary who claimed to have had an “entire hand” in 220 plays.
Anthony Munday: A writer and spy; some claim his “hand” in the Sir Thomas More manuscript proves his involvement.
Barnabe Barnes: A minor poet and “Dark Lady” claimant.
Thomas Sackville (Lord Buckhurst): Co-author of the first English tragedy Gorboduc.
Sir John Davies: A lawyer and poet; his legal mind is often linked to the legalisms in the plays.
Lady Mary Wroth: The first English woman to write a prose romance; suggested as a female voice in the sonnets.
Arabella Stuart: A cousin to Elizabeth I; some claim her tragic life is the source of the later romances.
Elizabeth Cary: The first woman to publish a play in English (The Tragedy of Mariam).
Thomas Kyd: Often cited as the author of the “Ur-Hamlet” that Shakespeare supposedly revised.
Alexander Waugh’s “New” Candidates: Various minor Elizabethan courtiers identified through modern cryptology.
Michael Drayton: A contemporary poet; legends say he was part of the “merry meeting” that led to Shakespeare’s death.
Francis Drake: A “navigator” theory based on the naval knowledge in The Tempest.
Thomas North: The translator of Plutarch’s Lives; recent theories suggest his unpublished journals were a primary source.
1.James Wilmot: An 18th-century clergyman; the first to “officially” doubt the Stratford man in his private papers.
William Byrd: The composer; some argue the “music of the spheres” in the plays requires a professional musician’s hand.
Inigo Jones: The stage designer; claimed to have written the masques in the later plays.
Henry Neville is indeed a heavy hitter in the “scholarly” alternative camp, especially with the Audley End connection. You’re spot on about the friction there—while Brenda James and William Rubinstein (The Truth Will Out) built a massive case around Neville’s library and his “Tower Notebook,” Roger Stritmatter has recently been very vocal in claiming those Audley End annotations for Oxford instead. It’s a classic authorship turf war.
And the NASA connection you’re thinking of is Dr. Sabrina Feldman. She is a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the author of The Apocryphal William Shakespeare. Her “Third Way” theory is exactly as you described: she argues that the Stratford man was a real playwright but mostly wrote the “Bad Quartos” and apocrypha, while the “Great” works were the secret output of Thomas Sackville.
Here is an updated list to bring your count toward that “Nifty Fifty,” incorporating your new candidates and the “Klingon” tier:
The “Scholarly” Heavyweights Sir Henry Neville: A diplomat whose travels and library at Audley End align with the plays’ sources. The “Tower Notebook” is the central artifact here.
Thomas Sackville (Lord Buckhurst): Supported by NASA’s Sabrina Feldman. As the co-author of Gorboduc, he had the “pomp” and the poetic pedigree to be the “hidden” genius.
Thomas North: Popularized recently by Michael Blanding; the theory is that Shakespeare used North’s unpublished travel journals as “source plays.”
Henry Neville’s “Group”: A theory that Neville led a syndicate including Bacon and Oxford (the ultimate crossover event).
The “Klingon” Tier (Extreme Possibilities) Cervantes: The “Double-Life” theory; that the two greatest writers of the age were actually one person traveling between Spain and England.
Sheikh al-Speir: The claim that “Shaykh Zubayr” was an Arab whose name was anglicized.
The Rosicrucian Brotherhood: Not a person, but a mystical collective using “Shakespeare” as a vessel for hermetic secrets.
Muammar Gaddafi’s Candidate: Essentially the political endorsement of the Sheikh theory.
The “Late Elizabethan” Outsiders Anne Whateley: Proposed as the “spurned” writer who wrote the sonnets out of heartbreak after William married Anne Hathaway.
William Byrd: A theory that the intricate musical metaphors in the plays could only come from England’s greatest composer.
Inigo Jones: Sometimes linked to the elaborate masques in the later plays like The Tempest.
Fulke Greville: A favorite for those who find the plays’ politics too “insider” for a commoner.
Alfonso Ferrabosco: An Italian composer at court; suggested to explain the deep Italian musical knowledge.
Lady Mary Wroth: A literary powerhouse in her own right, often suggested for the “feminine” perspective in the later romances.
Sir Thomas Urquhart: A wilder claim based on his eccentric, polymathic vocabulary.
The “Great Unknown”: A placeholder for the theory that the author was a high-ranking noble whose name has been completely scrubbed from history.
William Shakespeare of Stratford: Because in this list, the “man from Stratford” is often treated as the most unlikely candidate of all!
