Why hasn't the Mystery Writer who really wrote the plays ever been pinpointed? It seems very convenient to me that he remains nameless. Why haven't all these years of searching turned up a definitive candidate?

Again; the burden of proof lies on your side of the table, and you haven't provided any.

Mark Haslett has earlier written:

Mark Haslett wrote: Then, for the sake of this discussion, could we agree that the facts are inconclusive about some key things?

SB replied: Of course. Evidence can be open to different interpretations.

Mark Haslett wrote: The facts do not prove that Shaksper had an education. 

SB replied: I agree. 

Mark Haslett wrote: Instead of saying "there's no evidence for this," it would be more productive to stipulate that it isn't proven, then state how you see the evidence pointing toward your conclusion.

SB replied: As I've posted before: There's the possibility that Shakespeare attended the The King Edward VI School, but no evidence that he did. There's also Jonson's poem, which teases Shakespeare's inadequate learning, and the Parnassus Plays mocking his lack of university education.

I agree that Shakespeare did not receive a university education. I believe he may have had some degree of grammar school education, and I agree that there's no proof that he had.

Mark Haslett wrote: However, I am not personally of the opinion that Shaksper could not read, just that he could not have written the works. One reason is that he had nothing like the necessary education.  

SB replied: The works don't show a high degree of education and don't conform to the classical rules of drama of unity of time, place and action, as one would expect them to do if they were written by a classically educated author. This is the basis of Jonson and The Parnassus Plays criticisms of them.

Mark Haslett wrote: This is a misrepresentation. Jonson's remarks.

SB replied: ? I'm not sure if you meant to add something more here?

Mark Haslett wrote (in reply to my comment that "The plays make constant errors that are inconsistent with someone who did receive a formal, classical education".

This is a misrepresentation.

SB replied: No, this was a contemporary criticism, one repeated by the critics of the Augustan period (early 18th century) who much preferred Jonson who did adhere to the classical rules of drama, and is pretty much repeated in the commentary of any contemporary edition of the plays, usually replete with footnotes pointing out factual errors in the plays.

Mark Haslett wrote: This is the question and very little imagination is required to answer it. Perhaps a "vulgar scandal" which meant the poet's name "must be buried where my body lay" -- as the poet himself declares in his sonnets.

SB replied: What "scandal" would there have been in revealing the supposed truth behind the true authorship of the plays in 1623? De Vere had been dead for nearly twenty years, ditto Queen Elizabeth I, Burghley for twenty five - what was the point in maintaining the fiction of Will of Stratford's authorship by that time?

I'll quickly add that I'm assuming you consider De Vere to have been the true author, incidentally! If not, who do you think the true author was?

SB replied: The authorship of Mucedorus is uncertain, but the general consensus seems to be that it was the work of George Peel, Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge, with Shakespeare possibly also contributing some scenes - although the critical consensus is against this.

As far as I know, Mucedorus was first attributed to Shakespeare in 1656, long after all four men were dead. The "true" writer - whoever he was, or they were - had no part in this decision. 

Mark Haslett wrote: The question of who was actually the author is a separate question.

It's the *critical* question, Mark, and you don't seem capable of answering it. You can make a negative argument against Shakespeare for the rest of your life, but until you make a *positive* argument for somebody else, you're not being reasonable. As soon as you do give the Mystery Writer a name, you'll have to start defending him against historical facts that hurt your case - I suspect you're not too keen on doing that.

SB replied: Except that Oxford died in 1604, and plays under the name William Shakespeare continued for about a decade after that. It is now widely accepted that the plays were written in collaboration with a series of authors, such as George Peele, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, George Wilkins, and John Fletcher.

The plays do not confirm to the rules of drama that would be expected of someone who had received a classical education, and were mocked by contemporaries such as Ben Jonson and in The Parnassus Plays for that very reason. They also make repeated slips regarding geography and genealogy that is impossible to reconcile with a well-travelled nobleman.

The argument of "the stigma of print" - that a nobleman could not possibly be known as the author of mere popular drama - is disproven by Oxford being named as an author in Francis Meres' Palladis Tamia, and suffering no ill consequences, and also by his own daughter pleading with Robert Cecil to allow her husband, William Stanley, the 5th Earl of Derby, to keep writing them.

A better analogy would be that the police find a dead body in an alley, follow a trail of blood across the street to a house and find a bloke inside holding a blood-stained knife saying, "I did it." And then somebody says, "But maybe he *didn't* do it! Maybe it was that Jack the Ripper guy who nobody can actually identify but we have lots of theories on who he *might* be!"