The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship proudly announces that it will initiate the publication of a series of books on the Shakespeare authorship question (primarily focusing on the Oxfordian theory), edited by Dr. Roger Stritmatter, Professor of Humanities at Coppin State University in Baltimore.
Each book in the series will focus on a particular topic related to the authorship question and will contain articles by various authors related to that subject. The books will be available for sale on Amazon.
The book series will honor and perpetuate the “Brief Chronicles” title of the annual scholarly journal of that name, also edited by Professor Stritmatter (together with Professor Michael Delahoyde), published by the Shakespeare Fellowship (SF) (2009–13) and then, following the SF’s merger with the Shakespeare Oxford Society, by the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship (2014–16).
The first book in the new series, Poems of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, will compare de Vere’s early known and suspected poetry to the works published under the name “William Shakespeare.” (Update: Volume I of this book, He That Takes the Pain to Pen the Book, which Professor Stritmatter previewed at the October 2018 SOF conference in Oakland, California, was initially published in April 2019, and will be revised and republished, along with additional volumes.)
The topic of the second book will be “Teaching the Shakespeare Authorship Question.” (Update: Advance copies of this volume, The Shakespeare Authorship Sourcebook: A Workbook for Educators and Students, were distributed to educators at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) convention in Baltimore in November 2019. This volume is being revised and prepared for general publication.)
SOF President Tom Regnier declared:
We are pleased to announce this project, which we believe is a perfect fit for Dr. Roger Stritmatter’s unique set of skills. Anyone who has read his special edition of the Brief Chronicles journal on the First Folio knows that Roger is a master at selecting and synthesizing the top scholarship in a particular area of authorship research. Roger’s groundbreaking dissertation on correlations between Biblical passages in Shakespeare’s works and Edward de Vere’s handwritten notations in his Geneva Bible earned him the first-ever Ph.D. awarded for the study of the Shakespeare authorship question. His book on the dating of The Tempest, co-authored with Lynne Kositsky, dismantled the Stratfordian argument that the play could not have been written by Edward de Vere. Roger’s interests and skills are among the widest-ranging of active authorship scholars. We in the Oxfordian movement look forward to enjoying the fruits of this effort.
[published April 25, 2018, updated 2021]
