Just a quick note re the comment to the July 10 post: Once again the anti-Stratford side is basically asking the impossible - to prove a negative. Everything is either about what's missing (he didn't mention books in his will, we don't have enough of his signatures) or coded messages (as if someone could have written the most imposing body of work in the history of literature almost by accident, because they were actually doing something else).

And the comment asks whether I have complete familiarity with the anti-Stratford side. I'll be really clear on this: I have far more familiarity with it than it deserves. Once there is a single piece of evidence (a document of any kind for a start) that even suggests that Shakespeare was a fraud or a pseudonym or whatever, then I'll be all ears. In the meantime, may I suggest reading his plays and poems thoroughly would be a far more valuable undertaking than this nonsense.