The man who wrote Shakespeare (video)

Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Fred Faulkes; DeVereSociety.co.uk

Then who was the author?

The face on the portraits is a mask.

This question attracts everyone from the casually curious to the passionately academic.

Many others who fall along the compelling continuum pose the question about the greatest literary challenge of all time: understanding the author behind Shakespeare’s plays and poems.

Courtier poet Edward De Vere -- the 17th Earl of Oxford -- was identified as a candidate in 1918 by J. Thomas Looney.

(It is pronounced low-nee, and jokes serve only to detract from the seriousness of the investigation). Looney was a writer and an English teacher who assembled a profile of the author based on the contents of the body of work.

• 3 dead giveaways De Vere is Shake-speare

Further investigation has only augmented and illuminated the case for Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, to the point where he has become the leading candidate for the man behind the pseudonym or pen name.

Adherents to the theory, who are called Oxfordians, are a large and ever-growing group. They find the body of evidence persuasive.

The De Vere Society, founded in 1986, supports and encourages this investigation and conversation in order to reach a better, deeper understanding of the works and the world that supported their creation. More