During the late 18th century there was a revival of interest in all things Shakespeare – perhaps in response to the American and French Revolutions which caused the British to examine their culture.
One of the innovative and entrepreneurial ways was the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London.
The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery was a collection of pictures commissioned by 18th-century engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting. The project contained three parts: an illustrated edition of Shakespeare’s plays, a folio of prints from the gallery, and a public gallery where the original paintings for the prints hung. The project was conceived at a dinner in November 1786, the gallery opened in May 1788, and the entire contents were sold and dispersed in 1805.An 18th century engraving from the Shakespeare play Cymbeline.
And where there’s interest and popularity, then there are people who are willing to cash in on a fad, but not do it honestly. Such was the fate that befelled William Henry Ireland who claimed to have discovered one of Shakespeare’s long lost plays Vortigern and Rowena – a play about a 5th Century British warlord.
He managed to persuade enough people to pay enough money for its one and only performance in 1796 before the awful play was denounced as rubbish and closed after opening night. Is it as bad as all that? You can find out for yourself, I have a copy of Vortigern for you here.
One man falls, another man is vindicated. So it was this week with Lewis Theobald, an actual Shakespeare scholar from whose belief that the play Double Falsehood is a genuine Shakespeare original has been vindicated by the power of forensic linguistics.
It was a tough ask for Theobald to keep the faith when he made the pronouncement in 1727 when no less a figure than Alexander Pope told him he was wrong.
The work titled Double Falsehood was presented by theatre impresario Lewis Theobald in the 18th century as an adaptation of a Shakespeare play about a Spanish nobleman’s ignoble pursuit of two women.
Theobald, a known scholar of Shakespeare, mounted his play at Drury Lane Theatre in London on December 13, 1727, claiming that it was a re-working of an original by the Bard and that he had three original texts.
His claims were greeted with widespread scepticism in the eighteenth century, including from the great poet Alexander Pope, who had considerable clout.
But a new study of its language to build up a psychological profile of the writer ‘strongly identifies’ the legendary playwright as the true author.
No wonder Shakespeare and the controversies surrounding his authorship should prove intriguing to Moonstone Conspiracy hero, Daniel Ridgeway.
Excerpt
Daniel rose from his seat with a grin and took Abigail’s hands one at a time, kissing them and placing them around his shoulders, before kissing her on the side of her mouth.
“Before I could understand the Vigenere code, I had to break a second one, the Baconian code,” he said.
“Bacon as in Sir Francis Bacon?”
“You’re a clever woman. That’s why I love you.” This time his lips met hers, soft and warm. Abigail savored the lingering taste of bitter coffee on them.
“Knowing it was a Baconian code reminded me of a conversation Jonathan, Rachel and I had over supper one night after going to see the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery.”
“About Bacon being the author of Shakespeare’s plays?”
“Umm-hmm,” Daniel affirmed, muzzling her hair and running his hands seductively across her back. “There was one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays in which, it has been said, Bacon inserted an anagram of his name. The play was Cymbeline.”
“I don’t know that one,” Abigail said, reveling in Daniel’s touch as she dropped light kisses across his freshly stubbled chin.
“Few people do. We prided ourselves on our arcane knowledge and thought we were very clever. At any rate, that was the clue – the six letter name of the heroine was the six Vigenere cipher key—Imogen.”