All for one and one for Allfordians

Interesting review of Charles Beauclerk's Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom by Bill Niederkorn, New York Times columnist and self-styled 'All-fordian'. Allfordians, I think, might be characterised as people who think Shakespeare was the Stratford man, or someone else - but not both. Wittgenstein would not approve.

The review is lengthy, but worth a look, as Niederkorn provides an all-too-rare example of what Shakespeare lit crit might look like if it were to be accepted that there is an authorship question. He reviews Beauclerk's book as if it contains an argument, rather than as a work of paranoid fantasy. He's interested in the interesting stuff, and sceptical of many of the claims - in other words, he's not a loony. Perhaps the future belongs to the Allfordians.