There's a question making the rounds in the Shakespeare world these days.

A big one, and one that's been around for a while.

And first this evening we have with us Mr. Norman Vulls of Gravesend,

who claims he wrote all Shakespeare's works.

Mr. Voles, I understand you claim that you wrote all those plays normally attributed to Shakespeare.

And that is correct. I wrote all his plays, and my wife and I wrote his sonnets.

From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers Director.

Okay, none of us really thinks that Shakespeare's plays were written by Mr. Norman Bowles of Gravesend.

But these days we do wonder, did Shakespeare write alone without any help from other people?

As we're recording this podcast, the issue has gained new salience after Oxford University

Press announced that in the new Oxford Shakespeare, the plays Henry the 6th,

parts one, two, and three would no longer be listed as having been written by Shakespeare

alone.

Instead, the title pages will say, by William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.

As you'll hear, advances in computer science have enabled scholars to find, with much greater

certainty, the fingerprints that we think tell us definitively who wrote which plays and even who wrote which acts within the plays.

Throwing open the idea that Shakespeare was a solo genius in charge of it all.

For our conversation on this subject, we've brought together voices that will be familiar to regular listeners of Shakespeare Unlimited.

One is Eric Rasmussen, chair of the English department at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Eric was a guest here in 2014 talking about how he unearths lost copies of the first folio,

the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays.

Eric's here now because in 1987, he edited all three of the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. Eric's here now because in 1987 he edited all three of the Henry the Sixth plays,

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