PALM SPRINGS, Calif., Oct. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Dead men don't write plays.

That's the explanation from Sir Francis Walsingham, the head of England's spy system, in The Shakespeare Conspiracy, by Ted Bacino.

"Fourteen plays?" he asks.  "And Shakespeare's been dead for years.  Some playwrights don't write that many plays in a whole lifetime and certainly not after they've died."

The question of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays once again took center stage this week when the prestigious and highly respected New Oxford edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare lists Christopher Marlow as the co-author of three of the plays ("Henry VI," Parts One, Two and Three).

According to The London Guardian, these three are among the 17 or more that are now believed to "contain writing by other people."

According to The New York Times, this is the first time another author has been listed on the title page of any of Shakespeare's works.  An esteemed team of 23 scholars from five countries completed the research on this.

Two questions have plagued historians for hundreds of years.  How could Christopher Marlowe, a known spy and England's foremost playwright, be suspiciously murdered and quickly buried in an unmarked grave – just days before he was to be tried for treason?

And, how could William Shakespeare replace Marlowe as England's greatest playwright virtually overnight – when Shakespeare had never written anything before and was merely an unknown actor?

According to The Shakespeare Conspiracy, the answer lies in Marlowe's suspicious murder and the unmarked grave, which has never been found to this day.  If Marlowe's death was faked, as many historians believe, he could have fronted for Shakespeare for years.  That would explain the plays that regularly appeared after 1616 when Shakespeare died.  Marlowe could have outlived Shakespeare and continued to write.

There have always been many questions about the Bard's ability to have written those works.  Marlowe was highly educated while Shakespeare had a grammar school education of "little Latin and less Greek."  Marlowe traveled extensively, knew court manners, legal issues, and maritime facts. Shakespeare had no background in these areas that are so prevalent in his plays and he never left England, even though many of the works take place in Italy.

Bacino's novel is written as "The Greatest Literary Deception of All Time."  It chronicles the life that Marlowe possibly lived as a fugitive, writing the works we know today as those of Shakespeare.

Also, researchers have found almost a hundred identical or very similar lines in the writings of Marlowe and Shakespeare. Did one person write both?

The last fifty pages of Bacino's novel is a supplement of historical notes and data to verify the accuracy of the details in his novel.

Throughout history, there have been many suggestions of who could have been the real author of Shakespeare's works.  The two most popular candidates are the Earl of Oxford and Christopher Marlowe.  Each has a strong and very active following.  (See The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition.)

The major argument that Marlowe could not be the author is that he was murdered in 1593 before Shakespeare's writings began appearing.  The conspiracy theory explains how Marlowe could have been alive to write these works if his murder was faked.

The major argument against the Earl of Oxford being the author is that he died in the year 1604, well before most of the works were appeared.

Bacino's novel, The Shakespeare Conspiracy, has been made into a stage play of the same title, which has had productions in Columbus, Ohio, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Rockford University in Illinois.

The rights for the play have recently been released for amateur and college productions.

The Sydney Morning Herald put the issue succinctly: Has the debate over the authorship of Shakespeare's plays…finally been settled?  The paper wrote that this recent revelation sheds "new light on the links between the two great playwrights after centuries of speculation and conspiracy theories."

www.TheShakespeareConspiracy.com

CONTACT:

Dr. Rufus Cadigan                                               
(815) 969 – 9065                                                        
131131@email4pr.com                                      

Or

Ted Bacino
(760) 778 – 1030
131131@email4pr.com

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Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161027/433607

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SOURCE Ted Bacino