Audrey: You're closer to the target than you may realize...how about Shakespeare's own will? I am not alone in thinking that Shakespeare drafted his own will. There are numerous reasons for suggesting this which I won't go into here, but I believe it makes for a compelling case. In addition, there is a three-page section of autograph manuscript from the play The Book of Sir Thomas More which was studied by a number of respected paleographers in the early 1900s. They concluded that this fragment is quite likely to be in Shakespeare's hand. In addition, there are some other public documents that could be studied and compared. Audrey, you may also be closer than you think in your assumption that Shakespeare was a scribe of some sort. To some paleographers his handwriting, abbreviations and other clues indicate he had some experience as a legal scribe. His plays certainly show in-depth knowledge of the law of his day, and he counted many lawyers and even a Master of Chancery among his friends. I'd like to see someone compare the hand of the will to the hand of the Sir Thomas More fragment, for starters. If anyone has ideas on who might be good at this I'd be interested in hearing what you suggest. -Al Cunniff on 2/13/04 2:09 PM, norman.lee1 at norman.lee1@virgin.net wrote: > Hi Al > > I'm wondering if there may be a few wills or inventories around that he > might have either witnessed or written as he was literate and quite a few of > his neighbours wouldn't have been. He may have been the 'scribe' of some of > the documents written at the time he was living in that particular place. A > trawl through these documents in the days before he was famous may turn up > trumps in identifying his handwriting. You can often tell by the signature > of the witnesses which one of them wrote the main body of the document. > > Audrey > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <acunniff@abn-corp.com> > To: <OLD-ENGLISH-L@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 11:43 AM > Subject: [OEL] Shakespeare's handwriting > > >> Seeing all these posts about Shakespeare's religion has brought me >> out of the woodwork, because Shakespeare is one of my special >> interests, and I'm gathering information for what could one day be a >> book. My focus is on what can be learned about the man and his life >> through his handwriting, which in fact is why I joined this list more than >> a year ago. >> >> The "accepted" view is that the only examples of Shakespeare's >> handwriting that we have are six signatures, on various legal >> documents. However, there are about 3 pages from a play manuscript >> which are strongly suspected of being in his hand as well. >> >> I (and a few others) believe that that are other documents in >> Shakespeare's hand right under our noses, but to date no one has >> done a great job of building that case. I had intended to make a few >> contacts via this list to bounce some ideas off now and then and to >> offer opinions on letters and legal documents I'd like to compare >> against other samples. >> >> If this sounds like something that appeals to you, if you're highly > skilled >> at reading the Secretary hand, if you've got a good eye for comparing >> samples and you've got some experience building a case for or >> against the idea that two pieces are by the same hand, drop a line >> sometime and we may correspond on a few points now and then! >> >> Thanks, >> Al Cunniff >> Baltimore, Maryland >> USA