The Living Record: Shakespeare, Succession, and the Sonnets

A compact version of The Monument, a reference edition published in 2005, for the general reader. Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford used the pen name "William Shakespeare" to dedicate his works to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, his unacknowledged royal son by Queen Elizabeth I of England. In the Sonnets, published in 1609, the earl tells the story of how he agreed to sacrifice his identity even after his death, to save Southampton's life and gain his release from perpetual confinement in the Tower of London. In other words, the answer to the so-called Shakespeare Authorship Question is answered in the Sonnets, for those of us in posterity, by the author himself.