The bard's lost play.

• Author: Potenza, Alessandra
• Position: LITERATURE - William Shakespeare's 'Double Falsehood' - Brief article

If your goal is to read all the plays written by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), you may have to add one more to your list. New research suggests that Double Falsehood, a play published in 1728 and long credited to Lewis Theobald, was actually written by the Bard with the help of his sometime collaborator John Fletcher. With English scholars questioning Theobald's authorship, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin used computer software to analyze word patterns and recurring sentences in the writings of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Theobald; then they compared the writings with the play's language. The results: Shakespeare's and Fletcher's styles match...