Candidates

Fourteen candidacies, each assessed against the same two independent frameworks. A candidacy earns a page once it has entered the debate; where it then sits depends on one factual question: whether its authorship case has been made in an independent publication.

Two independent frameworks are applied to all assessed candidates: Diana Price’s literary paper trail (ten categories of primary source documentation that Elizabethan writers routinely left behind), and a convergence analysis (evidence strands drawn from the works, the publication history, and the historical record). No single framework is decisive; the interest lies in where they agree. Two Frameworks page

How Candidates Are Selected

Two qualifiers: recognition, then publication

A candidacy faces two separate questions, asked in order and kept apart so that every inclusion and exclusion can be judged against the same rule. Recognition comes first: has the candidacy been taken up and argued by others, independently of whoever first proposed it, and can it be traced in the literature beyond its originator’s own writing? This decides whether it earns a page at all. Every candidacy begins with a single advocate, and it earns a place here when the discussion has outgrown that advocate. A proposal found only in its originator’s own output (however extensive, and whether self-published, posted freely, or submitted to a society) has not crossed that line. The test is the same for every candidate, and it asks only whether a case has entered the field.

The second question is asked only of names already recognised: has the case appeared in a qualifying publication? That means a book-length monograph from a press that publishes authors beyond the candidate’s own advocate, or a peer-reviewed article with editorial oversight from outside the authorship-advocacy community. Self-published, author-imprint and vanity-press titles, and publications by authorship-advocacy societies, do not qualify; a work’s price or online accessibility has no bearing. Recognition can come without publication: a candidacy can be argued widely for years before anyone writes a qualifying book or article about it, which is why several recognised names here appear as documentation entries.

The answer decides how fully the page treats the case. A candidacy with a qualifying publication and a documentary record substantial enough to score receives a full framework assessment across the Price paper trail and Convergence tables; where the published case has not yet engaged the primary-source silence, the assessment is preliminary; where no qualifying publication exists, the page documents the argument and why it does not meet the threshold. Having a page is not an endorsement, and publication status is separate from evidential strength, which the framework scores measure; the two can diverge.

This site assesses candidacies that others have proposed. The set assessed here is a representative sample of authorship advocacy as a whole, and makes no claim to be a shortlist. The assessment finds the same thing in every case, however the candidate ranks and however sure its advocates are: no primary-source document connects any candidate to the works as their author. A high ranking without that document falls short of proof. Further names would repeat that finding without overturning it, and that, as much as any limit of time or inclination, is why the site does not set out to enlarge the field. A case for a new name belongs in the wider debate. What the site asks of everyone, its own readers included, is a measure of self-scrutiny, above all from those most certain they are right. The criteria set out here are there for anyone who wants to test a case against them.

The traditional attribution

The orthodox identification, assessed on the same two frameworks as every alternative: the evidential baseline against which the others are weighed.

Cases made in an independent publication

An authorship case set out in a publication independent of the candidate’s own advocates: a monograph from a press that publishes other authors, or a peer-reviewed article. Publication alone endorses nothing; the evidence lies in the framework scores. Eight are assessed in full; Bassano and Rutland, whose published cases have not yet addressed the primary source silence, are assessed preliminarily.

Cases not yet in an independent publication

Recognised candidacies with no qualifying publication. Each page records the argument and why it does not yet meet the threshold.