iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 02/12/2025

1/ The Oxfordian cause is in total disarray. In 1987, Justice John Paul Stevens admonished Oxfordians over the lack of a unified and logical framework for Oxford as the true author of Shakespeare's works.

100

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 17/11/2025

"Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule." Mr. Jaggers, Great Expectations.

000

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 19/10/2025

IF you want to annoy an Oxfordian, pronounce the name of the man who invented the theory the way he pronounced it. Thomas Looney (LU-nee).

030

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 30/08/2025

We asked ChatGPT to restate our PFC. Here's its response: 1/ Prima Facie Case for Shakespeare’s Authorship The First Folio identifies the author as “William Shakespeare.” Multiple paratexts (dedications, prefaces, title pages) consistently attribute the works to “Shakespeare.”

110

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 26/07/2025

422 years ago, Hamlet was entered in the Stationers Register by printer James Roberts.

052

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 13/07/2025

1/ In his book, Historians' Fallacies, David Hackett Fischer describes a form of argument frequently used by Shakespeare authorship deniers as "the fallacy of the negative proof." Almost the entire case for Shakespeare authorship denial rests on this logical fallacy. archive.org/details/Hist...

archive.org

Historians Fallacies Toward A Logic Of Historical Thought : David Hackett Fischer : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Historian's Fallacies : Toward A Logic of Historical Thought

120

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 11/06/2025

1/ It's common that people in high positions in society, politics, entertainment and business hire professional writers. Ghost-writers are plentiful. It's far more likely that the Earl of Oxford took credit for plays and poems written by his "secretaries" John Lyly and Anthony Munday . . .

110

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 11/06/2025

Oxfordians have never given a plausible explanation for why Oxford wouldn't have taken credit for plays and poems he wrote. He had a number of published poems in the 1570s; why would he have concocted a pseudonym or allonym to publish Venus and Adonis, a poem of much greater merit than his others?

020

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 16/05/2025

1/ One of the many Shakespeare authorship doubter works we read (in this case, a Marlovian) gives a good example of the kind of thinking that believing in these elaborate conspiracy theories requires.

250

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 14/04/2025

Here's an excellent short video on Shakespeare authorship doubt by Sir Jonathan Bate. Worth watching! youtu.be/JXUg0cbEzaE?...

youtu.be

The Shakespeare Authorship Question

YouTube video by Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

0101

Reposted by Oxfraud

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 08/04/2025

Tariffs xkcd.com/3073

256312048709

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 29/03/2025

1/ About 7 years ago, a lecturer in creative writing who is also a Shakespeare authorship doubter (SAD) came up with a MOOC to indoctrinate budding SADs in the mysteries of the Shakespeare authorship cult. Many of the members of our little group of history and lit buffs decided to join.

120

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 27/03/2025

The recent response to our post by Professor Roger Stritmatter from Coppin State U reveals what we at Oxfraud have known for a long time: the hard-core Shakespeare authorship deniers (SADs) read our posts and website and they're worried about our impact on their cult.

120

Reposted by Oxfraud

Claire Ridgway @claireridgway.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

#OTD in history, in 1619, the world lost a man who'd played a major part in Elizabeth I's Golden Age of theatre: actor Richard Burbage, who'd brought Shakespeare's plays to life... www.tudorsociety.com/richard-burb...

tudorsociety.com

Richard Burbage, the Elizabethan actor - The Tudor Society

On this day in history, 13th March 1619, the stage lost one of its greatest stars. Richard Burbage, Shakespeare’s leading man, the original Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear, breathed his last at the age...

1204

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 11/03/2025

Here's an excellent review of Elizabeth Winkler's book of a couple years ago, all about the backlash against her notorious Atlantic article about Shakespeare authorship denial. orbnews.substack.com/p/shakespear...

orbnews.substack.com

SHAKESPEARE WAS A WOMAN and Other Grifts

Elizabeth Winkler's calculated her-esy

041

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 04/03/2025

1/ The first Oxfordian was J.Thomas Looney (pronounced Lew-knee, just like it's spelt). He came up with a list of characteristics he thought the author of Shakespeare's works would have, and set out to find someone who matched his imaginary criteria. He was like Sherlock Holmes (or maybe Clouseau.)

240

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 28/02/2025

Here's an excellent article from a few years ago. Shakespeare authorship denial is a conspiracy theory and its adherents are endlessly inventive. They don't acknowledge when their theories are refuted, and they're always coming up with new ones. www.thetimes.com/article/wher...

thetimes.com

Where there’s a Will, there’s a wacky conspiracy theory

A few weeks ago a woman wrote to me from the US about a remarkable discovery she’d made. The writings attributed to Shakespeare are, she believes, the work of Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, who

1101

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 27/02/2025

People who make generalizations that if Shakespeare wrote the works, there *must* be extant letters or manuscripts in his hand. But as usual they have no idea of the context of the time, or the likelihood of survival of paper documents.

150

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 25/02/2025

Just wanted to post this clip of Shakespeare scholar Sir Jonathan Bate recommending our site, Oxfraud.com, for historical evidence that the works were written by William Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon. Thank you, sir Jonathan, we're honored. youtube.com/clip/Ugkx7D3...

oxfraud.com

2110

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 23/02/2025

1/ The Shakespeare authorship doubters (SADs) think "Shakspere" and "Shakespeare" were pronounced entirely differently. For many, this is a cornerstone of their theory that the man from Stratford and the author weren't the same person. But they're not taking into account the Great Vowel Shift.

360

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 22/02/2025

Professor Emeritus Alan Nelson of UC Berkley is a leading Shakespeare scholar, and biographer of the Earl of Oxford, disproving Oxfordianism. He posted primary documents on his webpage at Berkley that was deleted after his retirement. Oxfraud preserved a mirror of his site. socrates.oxfraud.com

socrates.oxfraud.com

Alan H. Nelson

041

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 20/02/2025

1/3 Handwriting has, I think, been the true downfall of Shakespeare Deniers, be it the entry of Hand D into the canon, adding Oxford's handwritten corpus into CQP, the analysis which identified his fenland accent, or the madness their own graphology, which always supports their own candidate.

131

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 20/02/2025

1/ Another trick used by Shakespeare authorship deniers (SADs) based on translations from Latin is treating their translations into English of Latin texts without giving the original context of the texts.

170

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 18/02/2025

1/ A favorite technique of Shakespeare authorship deniers (SADs) is to mistranslate a Latin phrase to appear to support their candidate. (It's not clear whether this is intentional of just a poor understanding of Latin.) There are several examples of this:

271

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 11/02/2025

Eight years ago, on a YouTube comment thread, the Shakespearean Authorship Trust acknowledged the main points of our prima facie case for Shakespeare's authorship: Heminges and Condell knew Shakespeare and believed he wrote the works. Who would know better than they?

140

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 08/02/2025

An excellent discussion of Shakespeare authorship doubt by author Philip Womack. www.the-emigre.com/column/on-wi...

the-emigre.com

On Will-fullness — The Emigre

Why are we so desperate to believe that William Shakespeare wasn’t William Shakespeare?

591

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 05/02/2025

1/ Leonard Digges, who was stepson of one of the overseers of William Shakespeare's will, wrote this poem included in the Second Folio of Shakespeare's works. It leaves no question about the authorship of the works:

231

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 02/02/2025

1/ The Shakespeare authorship doubters (SADs) have a huge problem: they have to explain away all the evidence that supports attributing the works to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. They haven't been very successful.

160

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 01/02/2025

We at Oxfraud do not claim that our case for Shakespeare's authorship of the plays in the First Folio is "proof" of his authorship. It's prima facie, and rebuttable. It's just as shaky as the theory of gravity or the theory of evolution; it topples with one piece of solid primary evidence!

1121

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 29/01/2025

1/ The Oxfordian authorship theory dangles from the thinnest of threads: in The Arte of English Poesie (1589), George Puttenham listed Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, as among the best nobles "for Comedy and Enterlude."

130

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 19/01/2025

1/ What counts as evidence for Oxfordians is sometimes difficult to believe.

110

Reposted by Oxfraud

John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

10 Jan 1561: Elizabeth I appoints William Cecil Master of the Wards #otd - a very lucrative post indeed (NPG)

0164

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 07/01/2025

1/ If you ever hear the arguments of Shakespeare authorship deniers (SADs), you'll eventually be told that the fact that Shakespeare does not mention books in his will is evidence he was illiterate.

230

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 05/01/2025

Continuing stupid conversations is a waste of time. Why do I bother? It's not to convince the person I'm talking to. They'll never get it. But there are undeniable similarities between Shakespeare authorship deniers and antivaxxers.

030

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 04/01/2025

Changed our profile picture to feature my xmas gift, a facsimile volume of the First Folio, along with a bust of the Bard and Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives, + Monstrous Adversary, Professor Alan Nelson's definitive biography of Edward de Vere.

171

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 26/12/2024

1/ The attacks on Wikipedia by the boss over on that other platform is reminiscent of the sustained attacks by Oxfordians seeking to insert their version of the facts into entries related to Shakespeare authorship. To its credit, Wikipedia's rules and editors have prevented this.

280

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 21/12/2024

1/ Many Shakespeare authorship doubters think Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, wrote the works--but that flies in the face of the evidence of de Vere's own writing. Analysis of his known poetry and prose shows that Oxford spoke and wrote with a pronounced Essex accent.

250

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 21/12/2024

Hey, the geometry is there!

141

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 20/12/2024

What are the odds? Do the odds against this happening randomly imply that the coincidence must have been an intentional act? (No, it doesn't.)

231

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 07/12/2024

1/ The evidence that the Earl of Oxford wrote plays is exaggerated. Just one writer credited him with being among the best for "comedy and enterlude," in The Arte of English Poesie. Nobles often used professional writers to ghost-write works on their behalf, and Oxford employed writer John Lyly.

140

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 04/12/2024

The Oxfordian theory claims that the Earl of Oxford wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare--but what evidence supports the claim that he ever wrote plays? Puttenham said he was among the best for "comedy and enterlude." No firsthand evidence he wrote anything but court entertainments.

000

Oxfraud @oxfraud.com · 03/12/2024

We're torn between turning our back on Musk and looking for a insider route to beating him at his own game. Unless something turns up, when we hit 300 followers the once popular X-Twitter account of ours will suffer the same fate as its Norwegian Blue cousin and join the choir invisible.

041