Granville Greenwood - Shakespeare Authorship

Shakespeare Authorship

Greenwood was also one of the most persistent and effective fighters in the Shakespeare authorship question, and published many books on the subject. He was a frequent correspondent to The Times, both on Shakespearean subjects and on the protection of animals.

Greenwood is the author of twelve books and numerous articles on the authorship question, all published 1908-1924. A prolific and entertaining writer, he engaged in a series of well-known public debates, carried on in books and in public forums of exchange such as newspapers and literary journals, with Sir Sidney Lee, the leading Shakespearean biographer of his generation. Although the most effective anti-Stratfordian of the early decades of the 20th century, Greenwood refused to endorse an alternative author of the Shakespearean canon, preferring instead to remain agnostic on the identity of the author while steadfastly maintaining that the traditional view of authorship was ultimately indefensible.

In 1922 he joined with J. Thomas Looney to establish The Shakespeare Fellowship, the organization which subsequently carried forward public discussion of the authorship question up to the 1940s.