Does anyone know, like I do, that William Shakespeare did not write the play Sir Thomas More, and yet it is attributed to him. To quote from a letter I received from The British Library, it can be seen that there is some mystery surrounding this play. I will probably bring out an ebook about it some time in the next hour and put it on Mobipocket. It might sell well.
"Thank you for your enquiry of 23rd February [1998].
The ‘Booke of Sir Thomas Moore’ is a collaborative effort by several playwrights. Late last century three of its pages were proposed as Shakespeare’s own autograph contribution, and subsequently the matter was examined in detail by the palaeographer Sir Edward Maunde Thompson in his ‘Shakespeare’s Handwriting, 1916. Thompson’s work, along with that of later scholars, tended to confirm the attribution. More recently, the question of authorship has been subjected to scrutiny of various kinds in Sir Thomas More: essays on the play and its Shakespearian interest, ed. By T.H. Howard-Hill, 1989.
The play has been in print since 1842, and texts are included in several collections of Shakespeare’s works and apocrypha. Some of these are noted in the enclosed photocopies of the relevant entries from our Catalogue of Printed Books and the Index of English Literary Manuscripts, vol. I, ed. Peter Beal, 1980. Among the many reproductions of the Shakespeare leaves that are available I should mention that given, with discussion, by Samuel Schoenbaum in William Shakespeare: records and images, Oxford, 1975, pp., 109-115.
As one of the Library’s greatest treasures the original (Harley MS 7368), which has suffered rather badly from physical deterioration over the years, is not normally made available in our Students’ Room. However, a leaf from it, now temporarily withdrawn from display at the British Museum, is to be transferred to a Shakespeare case in the new exhibition area at St. Pancras in the late spring or early summer. I enclose a draft of the label written to accompany it."
"Thank you for your enquiry of 23rd February [1998].
The ‘Booke of Sir Thomas Moore’ is a collaborative effort by several playwrights. Late last century three of its pages were proposed as Shakespeare’s own autograph contribution, and subsequently the matter was examined in detail by the palaeographer Sir Edward Maunde Thompson in his ‘Shakespeare’s Handwriting, 1916. Thompson’s work, along with that of later scholars, tended to confirm the attribution. More recently, the question of authorship has been subjected to scrutiny of various kinds in Sir Thomas More: essays on the play and its Shakespearian interest, ed. By T.H. Howard-Hill, 1989.
The play has been in print since 1842, and texts are included in several collections of Shakespeare’s works and apocrypha. Some of these are noted in the enclosed photocopies of the relevant entries from our Catalogue of Printed Books and the Index of English Literary Manuscripts, vol. I, ed. Peter Beal, 1980. Among the many reproductions of the Shakespeare leaves that are available I should mention that given, with discussion, by Samuel Schoenbaum in William Shakespeare: records and images, Oxford, 1975, pp., 109-115.
As one of the Library’s greatest treasures the original (Harley MS 7368), which has suffered rather badly from physical deterioration over the years, is not normally made available in our Students’ Room. However, a leaf from it, now temporarily withdrawn from display at the British Museum, is to be transferred to a Shakespeare case in the new exhibition area at St. Pancras in the late spring or early summer. I enclose a draft of the label written to accompany it."