It was in third form of grammar school in 1964 when my English (Language and Literature) teacher, Joost de Lange announced: “Now we have to talk about Shakespeare”. He began: “there are various theories about the author, that he was an Earl, that it was a group of writers.” He left it at that, he did not mention the name of Shaksper from Stratford, a town that I visited in 1975. I was unimpressed. In 1994, over the dishes, in Speldhurst (Kent), Elizabeth Imlay told me about Ogburn’s Mysterious Willam Shakespeare, which she had read and in about twenty minutes she convinced me of the authorship of Edward deVere. Subsequently I started buying books, to begin with Ogburn and Ruth Loyd Miller’s annotated Looney, and a “Hundreth Sundrie Flowres.” I joined the DeVere Society in 1995 and organized four Dutch Authorship Conferences 2004-7. I consider myself lucky to have met and befriended so many esteemed, original and knowledgeable colleagues.
— Jan Scheffer
“How I Became an Oxfordian” is edited by Bob Meyers. You may submit your essay on this topic (500 words or less in an editable format such as MS Word), along with a digital photo of yourself, to: communications@shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org. Also include a sentence about yourself (e.g., “John J. Smith is a businessman in San Francisco.”).
You may join the SOF or renew your membership at our membership page.
