In April I delivered an invited lecture to a members-only meeting of the Shakespeare Authorship Trust, a British organization dedicated to exploring the authorship question, about some annotated books at the Essex Estate of Audley End.

John Casson and Bill Rubinstein’s book, 2016 book, Sir Henry Neville was Shakespeare: The Evidence, and later the blog of Ken Feinstein, both claimed somewhat independently that the annotations were by Sir Henry Neville (1564-1615), whom they claim to have identified, based on the annotations among other grounds, as the real “Shakespeare.”

A number of these annotations, especially those found in the Audley End copy of Appian’s An Auncient Historie and Exquisite Chronicle of the Romanes Warres, both Civile and Foren (Paris, 1551), cover topics known from Shakespeare’s Roman plays. There is, for example, an annotation summarizing Appian’s account of Cleopatra’s fear of being led in triumph by Caesar and decision to commit suicide.

Stuart Gillespie in his Athlone Press dictionary Shakespeare’s Books (2001) lists Appian as a significant secondary source (after the primary source, Plutarch) for Shakespeare’s shaping of the two Roman plays, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. The annotator of the Audley End copy of this book takes extensive notes on several of the passages that influenced Shakespeare in those two Roman plays, including Mark Antony’s funeral oration in Julius Caesar.

While the Audley End library may contain volumes annotated by Sir Henry Neville, and indeed the better part of the earliest strata of books in the library originated as part of his collection, the two books in question — are not, as the video demonstrates, in Neville’s hand.

Coming soon! High quality images and analysis of the handwriting of these volumes.

At the same event, Robin Williams delivered this terrific video on Shakespeare’s language.

Check out the videos and tell me what you think!