Smart thinkers are more impressed by fact patterns than by allegations of isolated facts presented as decisive arguments.
Facts may be interesting, but fact patterns are more interesting and more worthy of our attention. In this first in a series of posts covering several elements of fact pattern in the authorship question, we will consider the question:
“Where are Shakespeare’s Books?”
Almost three-hundred books are known to survive from Ben Jonson’s library.
At bookowners.online you can read about Jonson’s books, along with those of over 2350 British owners from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
The Folger Shake-speare Library’s Collation blog recently featured an account of the Jonson books that the library owns:
At the Middle Temple library, you can even see images of a book owned first by Ben Jonson and then by John Donne.
Recently Milton’s copy of Shakespeare has come to light and is filled with deeply fascinating notes in Milton’s hand.
It certainly doesn’t seem like it’s that difficult to find at least some pieces of the reading habits of such classic English writers as Jonson, Donne, or Milton, not to mention the 2,347 others listed at bookowners.online.
Gosh, it even seems that we’ve got the Geneva Bible of Edward de Vere and that his annotations foreshadow Shakespeare’s biblical imagination.
Shakespeare? Still nothing.
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