About the SAT (Shakespearean Authorship Trust)

Who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays?

For four hundred years, doubts have been recorded about whether the man named William Shakspere from Stratford-upon-Avon actually wrote the works attributed to him. This website offers the chance to explore different arguments for the most prominent authorship candidates, as well as for the question itself.

We hope this site serves as a crossroads and meeting place and that it generates a polite conversation. If you don’t know what the fuss is about, please also visit our main web site: ShakespeareanAuthorshipTrust.org. You can also view our YouTube channel.

Yours in doubt,
Trustees of the Shakespearean Authorship Trust

History

Founded on 6 November 1922 in Hackney, London, our original name was the Shakespeare Fellowship. The name changed to The Shakespearean Authorship Society in 1959, and we are now The Shakespearean Authorship Trust, a registered charity. Our objective is the advancement of learning with particular reference to the social, political, and literary history of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the authorship of the literary works that appeared under the name of William Shakespeare.

Mission

The aims, as set out in 1922, are:

• To seek, and if possible establish, the truth concerning the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays and poems.

• To organise and encourage research, to promote the discussion of the authorship question, and to provide means of publishing contributions to its solution.

• To maintain and add to a reference library of works relating to the subject.