Do the Greatest Works of the World's Greatest Writers Tend to be Autobiographical?

Of course, they do. And this is why the Shakespeare canon provides an extensive biography of all the most striking moments of Thomas North's life

Today (11/18/2024), I’m giving a talk at Suffolk University Law School on Thomas North’s original authorship of the plays that Shakespeare later adapted for the public theater. And old Powerpoint slides reminded me of an important argument I have neglected to emphasize on my Substack.

Frequently, when presenting my case, I focus on the thousands of unique phrases, lines, and passages that Shakespeare borrowed from North (see Substack-post/video below). As I like to stress, this is the most open and shut case in the history of forensic linguistics (as shown in post/video below:

Indeed, the playwright did not just mine every section of every published work that North ever wrote, he also subsumed material from North’s writings that he never even published, including his handwritten travel journal and his marginal notes. Investigative journalist Michael Blanding (who wrote a book on the North discovery: In Shakespeare's Shadow: A Rogue Scholar's Quest to Reveal the True Source Behind the World's Greatest Plays and has since been converted from skeptic to fellow-researcher) even found an old North family history book at Harvard’s Houghton Library, which had North’s handwritten commentary written throughout. And as shown here, the notes compose an outline to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, giving us a unique view of the method by which Shakespeare’s plays were first created.

But what is perhaps even more thrilling is the fact that North was also one of the most autobiographical writers in history—and the majority of the major set-piece scenes in the canon correspond chronologically to the most striking and momentous events of North’s life. What follows is an excerpt from Thomas North: The Original Author of Shakespeare’s Plays: