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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6904
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| Posted: 21 May 2025 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | 1
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Evan: I suppose he couldn’t have talked to someone who read the book?
**
So here you are making a relatively reasonable and common attempt at solving the conundrum of how one guy working off his father’s debts in the middle of Warwickshire wool farm, miles outside of Stratford could intimately know the details of this 30 year old Spanish book.
But the suggestion is to imagine he has a bilingual friend on the same Warwickshire wool farm with his own copy of the old and rare book, speaking both Spanish or French as well as English. This friend, we suppose, told the story of the book so well that young Shaksper decided to have a go at adapting it for the stage.
Circumstantial evidence works as a web of facts that closes off options of likelihood. Your suggestion arises because evidence shows the likelihood that young Will could possibly have read the book himself is basically zero.
I would ask what evidence do we see for this hypothetical friend? It seems like the product of circular reasoning: Shaksper wrote the play and the writer read the Spanish book, so a translator must have existed to read him the book.
A simpler explanation that fits the facts is to suppose a man from Stratford didn’t write the plays.
No one in his lifetime ever said that he did. Not until years and years after he died did anyone anywhere suggest the writer was a man from Stratford.
Edited by Mark Haslett on 21 May 2025 at 11:54pm
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12916
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| Posted: 22 May 2025 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | 2
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Mark, have you considered formally publishing a book on authorship?
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6904
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| Posted: 22 May 2025 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | 3
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No, I haven't, Michael. I have found this topic surprisingly engrossing. Trying to resolve this to my satisfaction has given me "scholarly" labor in my spare time - and all the reseach has had definite benefits for the writing I do in film/television.
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6904
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| Posted: 22 May 2025 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | 4
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I came up with another thought experiment- for comic book fans.
Imagine comic books never got around to listing credits.
We know it started that way -- no names on the covers. No signatures in the panels. Just artwork — anonymous or misattributed to vague brand names like “Bob Kane” or “Joe Shuster.”
But imagine this went on through the Golden Age AND the Silver Age — when suddenly, mid-60's, a new style hit the stands. Dynamic. Anatomical. Revolutionary. It spreads like wildfire. Across companies, across characters. One artist is clearly changing the entire medium.
But you don’t know his name.
Eventually, in the late '70s, a dedication appears on one of his works:
“To Frank Miller, heir of my invention — I salute you.
— Krusty Bunker.”
Fans retroactively credit this seismic shift to the artist “Krusty Bunker.” And they’re not wrong — Neal Adams did lead a group by that name. But mostly, he worked alone. The rest of the Bunkers imitated his style — sometimes so closely, it was hard to tell them apart. And for ten years, it was all anonymous until the dedication, when everything gets lumped under “Krusty.”
Years later, a slumming journalist writes a piece about those “silly old comic books.” He tries to track down this mysterious Krusty Bunker — and finds a man named Krust Bunkor, a Stamford grain merchant who once invested in comics. Rumor has it, he liked to doodle.
Close enough, right?
The article runs. And suddenly, Krust Bunkor becomes "Krusty Bunker" the misunderstood genius who “really” changed comics.
And if Neal Adams had wanted to stay anonymous?
Well — history just handed the credit, and the legend, to the wrong man.
Because the official story — if we stretch the analogy — is even stranger.
It claims that a grain merchant from Stamford, who never owned a comic book, never showed any ability to draw, never met anyone at Marvel or DC...
was actually the one who drew all the works of Neal Adams.
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