In response to the writer who claimed that Oxford could not have written the plays because he was dead in 1604, I suppose he has not thought of the idea that manuscripts could have been preserved after the writer’s death? They did have drawers, cabinets, trunks, and cupboards back then, after all. And it does make sense that inferior collaborators could have fleshed out incomplete manuscripts after Oxford’s death. Half the works we have of Hemingway were published after his demise.

As for the ad hominem that Oxfordians are inherently snobs, I would reply that there are three things needed to produce works of such depth and profundity: genius, education, and lived experience. We have evidence that Oxford had all three. For William of Stratford we have no evidence of these; in fact, his lived experience runs counter to any sort of literary life.

Peter Frengel
Mechanicburg, Pa.