Claims that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works traditionally attributed to him were first explicitly made in the 19th century, though supporters of the theory often argue that coded assertions of alternative authorship exist in texts dating back to Shakespeare's lifetime. Typically, they say that the historical Shakespeare was merely a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who, for reasons such as social rank, state security, or gender, could not safely take public credit. Although these claims have attracted much public interest, all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider them to be fringe theories with no hard evidence, and for the most part disregard them except to rebut or disparage the claims.: "Professional Shakespeare scholars mostly pay little attention to it, much as evolutionary biologists ignore creationists and astronomers dismiss UFO sightings."; quotes James Shapiro: "There's no documentary evidence linking their 50 or so candidates to the plays."; quotes Gail Kern Paster, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library: "To ask me about the authorship question ... is like asking a paleontologist to debate a creationist's account of the fossil record." argues however in an anti-Stratfordian on-line journal that: "while Oxfordians have sometimes attacked the academy for ignoring them, the fact is, on the whole, that 'mainstream' Shakespeare scholarship has shown more interest in Oxfordianism than Oxfordians have shown in 'mainstream' Shakespearean scholarship."; : "I do not know of a single professor of the 1,300-member Shakespeare Association of America who questions the identity of Shakespeare ... Among editors of Shakespeare in the major publishing houses, none that I know questions the authorship of the Shakespeare canon."; : "I am an academic, a member of what is called the 'Shakespeare Establishment,' one of perhaps 20,000 in our land, professors mostly, who make their living, more or less, by teaching, reading, and writing about Shakespeare—and, some say, who participate in a dark conspiracy to suppress the truth about Shakespeare.... I have never met anyone in an academic position like mine, in the Establishment, who entertained the slightest doubt as to Shakespeare's authorship of the general body of plays attributed to him. Like others in my position, I know there is an anti-Stratfordian point of view and understand roughly the case it makes. Like St. Louis, it is out there, I know, somewhere, but it receives little of my attention.";

The basis for these theories can be traced to the 18th century, when, more than 150 years after his death, Shakespeare's status was elevated to that of the greatest writer of all time.; Shakespeare's pre-eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life, arousing suspicion that he was not the author of the works attributed to him.; ; : "By the middle of the 19th century, the Authorship Controversy was an accident waiting to happen. In the wake of Romanticism, especially its German variants, such transcendent, quasi-religious claims were being made for the supreme poetic triumph of the Complete Works that it was becoming well-nigh impossible to imagine how any mere human being could have written them all. At the same time the popular understanding of what levels of cultural literacy might have been achieved in 16th-century Stratford was still heavily influenced by a British tradition of Bardolatry (best exemplified by David Garrick's Shakespeare Jubilee) which had its own nationalist reasons for representing Shakespeare as an uninstructed son of the English soil …" At the same time, the influence of biblical higher criticism led some authors to take the view that Shakespeare's works could be the product of the collaborative efforts of many authors. Public debate and a prolific body of literature date from the mid-19th century, and numerous historical figures, including Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe and the Earl of Derby, have since been nominated as the true author.:

Promoters of various authorship theories assert that their particular candidate is more plausible in terms of education, life experience, and/or social status to be the true author of the Shakespeare canon. Most candidates are either members of the upper social classes or are known poets and playwrights of the day. Proponents argue that the documented life of William Shakespeare lacks the education, aristocratic sensibility, or familiarity with the royal court which they say is apparent in the works.: "These two notions—that the Shakespeare canon represented the highest achievement of human culture, while William Shakespeare was a completely uneducated rustic—combined to persuade Delia Bacon and her successors that the Folio's title page and preliminaries could only be part of a fabulously elaborate charade orchestrated by some more elevated personage, and they accordingly misread the distinctive literary traces of Shakespeare's solid Elizabethan grammar-school education visible throughout the volume as evidence that the 'real' author had attended Oxford or Cambridge."

Mainstream Shakespeare scholars maintain that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable for attributing authorship,: "in voicing dissatisfaction over the apparent lack of continuity between the certain facts of Shakespeare's life and the spirit of his literary output, anti-Stratfordians adopt the very Modernist assumption that an author's work must reflect his or her life. Neither Shakespeare nor his fellow Elizabethan writers operated under this assumption."; : "Perhaps the point is that deriving an idea of an author from his or her works is always problematic, particularly in a multi-vocal genre like drama, since it crucially underestimates the heterogeneous influences and imaginative reaches of creative writing. Often the authorship debate is premised on the syllogistic and fallacious interchangeability of literature and autobiography."; writes of "the junk scholarship that so unhappily defaces the authorship issue"; quotes James Shapiro: "Once you take away the argument that the life can be found in the works, those who don't believe Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare don't have any argument left." and that the convergence of documentary evidence for Shakespeare's authorship—title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians and official records—is the same as that for any other author of the time. No such supporting evidence exists for any other candidate,: "The problem that confronts all such attempts is that they have to dispose of the many testimonies from Will the player's own time that he was regarded as the author of the plays and the absence of any clear contravening public claims of the same nature for any of the other favoured candidates."; and Shakespeare's authorship was not questioned during his lifetime or for centuries after his death.: "No one in Shakespeare's lifetime or the first two hundred years after his death expressed the slightest doubt about his authorship."; : ". . . no suspicions regarding Shakespeare's authorship (except for a few mainly humorous comments) were expressed until the middle of the nineteenth century (in Hart's The Romance of Yachting, 1848). For over two hundred years no one had any serious doubts."

Despite the scholarly consensus,: "Most observers, however, have been more impressed by the anti-Stratfordians' dogged immunity to documentary evidence, not only that which confirms that Shakespeare wrote his own plays, but that which establishes that several of the alternative candidates were long dead before he had finished doing so." a relatively small but highly visible and diverse assortment of supporters, including some prominent public figures, are confident that someone other than William Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him.: "the astonishing hypotheses generated by the endlessly fertile brains of anti-Stratfordians." They campaign to gain public acceptance of the authorship question as a legitimate field of academic inquiry and to promote one or another of the various authorship candidates through publications, organizations, online discussion groups and conferences. List

This list of 88 candidates is in alphabetical order of surname, so that aristocrats appear under their family name, rather than their title (e.g. "De Vere, Edward" rather than "Oxford, Earl of"). Monarchs appear under their regnal names.

ABC Alexander, William (1568–1640), 1st Earl of Stirling, Well-traveled nobleman, sonnet writer and playwright. Proposed in 1930 by Peter Alvor. Andrewes, Lancelot (1555–1626), Bishop of Winchester, scholar and theological writer, proposed in 1940 by W. M. Cunningham, as a member of a group of Freemasons. Bacon, Anthony (1558–1601), statesman, spy. First proposed as a contributor by Mrs. Henry Pott in 1892 and as author of the sonnets by W. H. Denning, in 1925. Bacon, Francis (1561–1626), lawyer, scholar, essayist. Proposed as sole author by William Henry Smith in 1856 and as a co-author by Delia Bacon in 1857. See Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship Barnard, John (1604–1674), husband of Shakespeare's granddaughter, proposed by Finch Barnard in 1914. Barnes, Barnabe (1571–1609), poet, playwright. proposed as a member of a group theory by Alden Brooks in 1943. Barnfield, Richard (1574–1620), poet, proposed in 1901 in Notes and Queries. Blount, Charles (1563–1606), 8th Baron Mountjoy and 1st Earl of Devonshire, soldier and Knight of the Garter, proposed by Peter Alvor in 1930. Bodley, The Rev. Miles ( – c. 1611), Bible scholar; proposed in 1940 (mistakenly as "Sir Miles Bodley") by W. M. Cunningham. Bodley, Sir Thomas (1545–1613), diplomat, scholar, proposed in 1940 by W. M. Cunningham, as a member of a group of Freemasons Burbage, Richard (1567–1619), actor, proposed as a co-author of Hamlet in a group theory by Wilhelm Marschall in 1926. Burton, Robert (1577–1640), scholar, proposed by M. L. Hore in 1885. Butts, William (d. 1583), patron of literature; proposed by Walter Conrad Arensberg in 1929. Campion, Edmund (1540–1581), poet; proposed by Joanne Ambrose in 2005. Cecil, Robert (1563–1612), 1st Earl of Salisbury, statesman, proposed by J. H. Maxwell in 1916. Cervantes, Miguel de (1547–1616), Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright; proposed by Carlos Fuentes in 1976. Chettle, Henry (1560–1607), playwright, polemicist, proposed as a member of a group theory by John H. Stotsenberg in 1904. Crollalanza, Michelangelo (1564–?), said to be a Sicilian, proposed by Martino Juvara in 2000. See Crollalanza theory of Shakespeare authorship.

DEF

Daniel, Samuel (1562–1619), poet, historian, first proposed as a member of a group theory by T. W. White in 1892. Defoe, Daniel (1660–1731), novelist, proposed by George Magruder Battey. de Vere, Edward (1550–1604), 17th Earl of Oxford, courtier, poet, playwright. Proposed by J. Thomas Looney in 1920. See Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship Dekker, Thomas (1572–1632), playwright, proposed as a member of a group theory by John H. Stotsenberg in 1904. Devereux, Robert (Essex) (1566–1601), 2nd Earl of Essex. proposed as dual author in 1902, and as sole author in 1905 by Lantham Davis. Devereux, Walter (1541?–1576), 1st Earl of Essex. Proposed as dual author with his son Robert, in 1902 by Eugen Reichel. Digges, Leonard (c. 1515–c. 1559), scientist, proposed by Peter Usher in 2010. Donne, John (1572–1631), poet, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, proposed as part-author of the Sonnets by H.T.S. Forrest in 1923. Drake, Sir Francis (1540–1596), naval commander, adventurer, proposed in 1940 by W. M. Cunningham, as a member of a group of Freemasons. Drayton, Michael (1563–1631), playwright, proposed as a member of a group theory by John H. Stotsenberg in 1904.