Shakespeare's Knowledge of Law

A Journey Through the History of the Arguments

(originally appeared in a slightly different form in The Oxfordian, October 2001)

by Mark Andre Alexander

Works Cited

Books and Monographs
(Multiple works by one author are listed chronologically. Texts available online are linked.)

Andrews, Mark Edwin. The Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1965.
Allen, Charles. Notes on the Bacon-Shakespeare Question. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1900.

Barton, Sir Dunbar Plunket. Links Between the Law and Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1929.

Campbell, Lord. Shakespeare Legal Acquirements. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1859.
Castle, Edward James. Shakespeare, Bacon, Jonson and Greene. London: Sampson Low, Marston, & Co., 1897.
Clarkson, Paul S. & Warren, Clyde T. The Law of Property in Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Drama. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1942.
Collins, J. Churton. Studies in Shakespeare. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co., 1904.

Devecmon, William C. IN RE Shakespeare's 'Legal Acquirements': Notes by an Unbeliever Therein. New York: The Shakespeare Press, 1899.

Gibson, H. N. The Shakespeare Claimants. New York: Barnes & Noble Inc., 1962.
Greenwood, George. The Shakespeare Problem Restated. London: John Lane, 1908.
______ Shakespeare's Law and Latin. London, Watts & Co., 1916.
______ Is There a Shakespeare Problem? London: John Lane, 1916.
______ Shakespeare's Law. London: Cecil Palmer, 1920.
Guernsey, R. S. Ecclesiastical Law in Hamlet: The Burial of Ophelia. New York: The Shakespeare Society of New York, 1885.

Heard, Franklin Fiske. Shakespeare as a Lawyer. Buffalo: William S. Hein Co., 1987.

Keeton, George W. Shakespeare's Legal and Political Background. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., 1967.
Knight, W. Nicholas. Shakespeare's Hidden Life: Shakespeare at the Law 1585-1595. New York: Mason & Lipscomb, 1973.
Kornstein, Daniel J. Kill All the Lawyers? Shakespeare's Legal Appeal. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

McDonald, Russ. Shakespeare and the Arts of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
McManaway, James G. The Authorship of Shakespeare. Washington: The Folger Shakespeare Library, 1962.
Malone, Edmond (ed.). The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. 2 volumes. London: 1790.
Matus, Irvin Leigh. Shakespeare, IN FACT. New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 1994.
Milward, Martin W. Was Shakespeare Shakespeare? New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1965

Nashe, Thomas. The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works. New York: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1972.
Nicoll, Allardyce. Shakespeare. London: Methuen, 1952.

Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare. 2nd ed. McLean: EPM Publications, Inc., 1992.

Penzance, Lord. (Sir James Plaisted Wilde.) The Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy: A Judicial Summing Up. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1902.
Phillips, O. Hood, Shakespeare and the Lawyers. London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1972.
Posner, Richard A., ed. The Essential Holmes. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Robertson, J. M. Did Shakespeare Write Titus Andronicus? London, Watts & Co., 1905.
______ The Baconian Heresy. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1913.
______ An Introduction to the Shakespeare Canon. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1924.
Rowse, A. L. Shakespeare The Man. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
Rushton, William Lowes. Shakespeare A Lawyer. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.,1858.
______ Shakespeare's Legal Maxims. Liverpool: Henry Young & Sons, 1859, 1907.
______ Shakespeare's Testamentary Language. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.,1869.

Sams, Eric. The Real Shakespeare. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
Saunders, J. W. A Biographical Dictionary of Renaissance Poets and Dramatists, 1520-1650. Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1983.
Schoenbaum, S. Shakespeare's Lives. New edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.

Twain, Mark. Is Shakespeare Dead? New York: Harper & Brothers, 1909.

Ward, B. M., The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. London: John Murray, 1929.
Webb, Judge. The Mystery of William Shakespeare. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1902.
White, Edward J. Commentaries on the Law in Shakespeare. St. Louis: The F. H. Thomas Law Book Co., 1911, 1913.
White, Richard Grant. Memoirs of the Life of Shakespeare. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1865.
Wilkes, George. Shakespeare, From and American Point of View. London: Sampson Low, Marston, & Co., 1877, 1882.
Wilson, Ian. Shakespeare: The Evidence. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1993.
Wu, John C. H. Fountain of Justice. London: Sheed and Ware, 1959.

Articles from Periodicals, Law Journals, and Other Sources

Alexander, Mark. "Shakespeare's 'Bad Law'". The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter. 36.2. (Summer 2000): 1, 9-13.
Anon. Household Words. (1858): 454-456.
Anon. "Shakspeare a Lawyer." Legal Observer. 1. (1830): 27-29.
Anon. Review of Shakespeare's Testamentary Language. Law Magazine and Review. 27. (1869):162-163.

Burton, J. Anthony. "An Unrecognized Theme in Hamlet: Lost Inheritance and Claudius's Marriage to Gertrude." The Shakespeare Newsletter. (Fall 2000 and Winter 2000/2001): 71 and 103.

Fuller, R. F. "Shakspere as a Lawyer." Upper Canada Law Journal. 9. (1863): 91-97.

Gohn, Jack Benoit. "Richard II: Shakespeare's Legal Brief on the Royal Prerogative and the Succession to the Throne". The Georgetown Law Journal. 70.3. (1982): 943-973.

"Hales v. Petit". Plowden I. (1561): 253-265.
Hughes, Stephanie Hopkins. "'Shakespeare's' Tutor: Sir Thomas Smith (1513-1577)." The Oxfordian. III. (2000): 19-44.
Jolli, Eddi. "'Shakespeare' and Burghley's Library." The Oxfordian. III. (2000): 3-18.

Kathman, David. Letter to The Elizabethan Review. 5.2. (Autumn 1997): 21-23.

Marder, Louis. "Law in Shakespeare," Renaissance Papers 1954. University of South Carolina. (1954): 40-44.
Moore, Peter. "Recent Developments in the Case for Oxford as Shakespeare." A paper was presented at the 20th Annual Conference, October 10-13, 1996.

Sprague, Homer B, "Shakespeare's Alleged Blunders in Legal Terminology." Yale Law Journal. II. (1902): 304-316.

White, Richard Grant. "William Shakespeare - Attorney at Law and Solicitor in Chancery." Atlantic Monthly. 4. (1859): 84-105.
Wright, Daniel L. "'He was a scholar and a ripe and good one': The Education of the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, Mirrored in the Shakespeare Canon." The Oxfordian. I. (1998): 64-85.

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