All we have in writing from the Stratford man is his will and 5 other signed documents, all of which indicate he had difficulty writing his own name, let alone the plays and other poetry attributed to Shakespeare.
The will famously left his second-best bed to his wife, and the bulk of his estate to his favorite daughter Susanna. There was no mention at all of manuscripts, books, or any other literary property. We are supposed to believe that 7 years earlier in 1609 he had allowed his most famous poems to be published by Thomas Thorpe, and had no property interest in that publication, or in the future publication of his famous plays.
In his book “Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford’s Letters” William Plumer Fowler analyzes 37 of de Vere’s letters and compares the language to the Shakespeare plays. The analysis itself is very interesting, but the frontispiece of the book was stunning to this longtime handwriting analyst. That picture of a handwritten letter by de Vere clearly revealed to me the brilliant dramatic poet who very likely was Shakespeare.
The mystery of who wrote the Shakespeare plays and sonnets will very likely never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. It would be very nice to discover a manuscript of “The Tempest” in de Vere’s handwriting, which would settle all issues, chronological or otherwise. Barring such a miraculous event, we all just have our own considered opinion of the available evidence.
...We are supposed to believe that 7 years earlier in 1609 he had allowed his most famous poems to be published by Thomas Thorpe, and had no property interest in that publication, or in the future publication of his famous plays...
I think that the abdication of property interest makes a very persuasive argument that the works were indeed authored by another or others.
“We are The Reasoning Race, and when we find a vague file of chipmunk tracks stringing through the dust of Stratford village, we know by our reasoning powers that Hercules has been along there. I feel that our fetish is safe for three centuries yet.”