New to the Question?
This site has a lot of pages. These four are the right ones to start with, each stands on its own, and none requires any prior knowledge of the authorship debate.
The Overview
In a survey of twenty-four early modern literary contemporaries, every one left a personal trace of their work. Shakspere left none. Two numbers and two paragraphs.
For the Unconvinced
If your instinct is that this is conspiracy territory (cranks, obsessives, people who can’t accept that a commoner wrote great literature), start here. Those objections are taken seriously and answered directly.
The Documentary Problem
Seventy documents record Shakspere’s life. None records a literary career. This page explains why that absence is anomalous, and why the standard response (records were lost) doesn’t hold up.
Why This Site Was Created
The authorship question has been argued badly on all sides for 150 years. This page explains what is wrong with how the debate currently runs, and what this site tries to do differently.
After any of these, the full Contents page is the map.