In all of my classes the question always arises, Did someone else write Shakespeare's plays? Mark Twain's answer to this question was, Yes, it was another fellow-- his name was Shakespeare, too.

Let me say to begin with that I think the preponderance of evidence points to the actor from Stratford-on-Avon, William Shakespeare, as the author of the plays of William Shakespeare. During his lifetime several, though not all, of Shakespeare's plays were published in single quarto editions. Most of these had Shakespeare's name on the title page even though Shakespeare probably had little or nothing to do with the printing of the plays. For instance, Richard II was a very popular play and five editions were printed. The first did not have Shakespeare's name on the title page, but all subsequent editions did feature his name.

We must also keep in mind that there are no contemporary accounts of anyone disputing Shakespeare's authorship of his plays and there are numerous contemporary references in diaries, letters, other plays, and other written sources of William Shakespeare as the author of plays....