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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.07394  Wednesday, 13 March 2002

From:           Dave Kathman <djk1@ix.netcom.com>
Date:           Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 16:33:12 -0500
Subject:        "Oxford, Son of Queen Elizabeth"

[Editor’s Note: Once more HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED raises his head
among postings to SHAKSPER; however, I am going to allow this question.
My prohibition is against discussions of authorship, which I consider to
be an issue not worthy of my time in editing posts about the subject
into digests for the list – I already spend two to three and sometimes
four hours a day doing this. An explanation is in order. however. Dave
is requesting information about an e-mail spam. He asks that information
about those who have received this spam be send to him privately and he
indicates (and I agree) that the proper place to discuss, if one wishes
to do so, the issues raised in this recent book is the
humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare newsgroup (again, I agree). Yet I too
must comment. I am (and I really do not know how to characterize myself
without giving any credence whatsoever to those who believe otherwise),
for lack of a better term, an ANTI-Anti-Stratfordian. I received one of
the e-mails Dave mentions below. I did not read it carefully and deleted
it within a matter of seconds after a very fast perusal. The message
purported to be a newsletter that would arrive periodically to those
people who wanted to know the real truth (sorry for the double
redundancy). It then went on to the mention the book and its claims. I
truly do not remember the offer for a free copy in return for a good
review on Amazon. But I stopped deleted the message soon after reading
the claims Dave cites. Again, responses to Dave, discussion to
humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare, and any messages to me on this post
will be deleted without being read. –Hardy]

I'm sorry to venture into The Forbidden Topic, but I hope Hardy will
indulge me if I keep this off-list after this initial post.

An Oxfordian named Paul Streitz has written and self-published a book,
"Oxford, Son of Queen Elizabeth I", in which he asserts, not only that
the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays, but that Oxford was the
son of Queen Elizabeth I and Thomas Seymour, and that Elizabeth secretly
had at least five children (including the Earl of Essex, the Earl of
Southampton, and Robert Cecil).  While I have not read the book, it has
been a topic of discussion on the humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
newsgroup, and from all accounts it is farcically bad even by Oxfordian
standards, a source of virtually limitless comedy for anyone with even a
nodding acquaintance with Tudor history and literature.

I had heard, and read today on Wired news
(http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,50971,00.html) that Mr.
Streitz sent out a spam e-mail to 4000 English professors, offering them
a free copy of the book if they would agree to post a review of it on
Amazon.com.  Apparently, at least three people took him up on his offer,
but as of today, none of their reviews had appeared on Amazon -- the
only two reviews there both give the book five stars (out of five) and
praise it to the skies.

Did anybody out there receive this e-mail from Paul Streitz?  Did
anybody respond to it?  I'd be interested in hearing about (and
preferably reading) any responses people may have sent.  Please reply
off-list to djk1@ix.netcom.com, because I know that Hardy doesn't want
this kind of stuff cluttering up the list.

Thanks,
Dave Kathman
djk1@ix.netcom.com

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, editor@shaksper.net
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>

DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the
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