Arden Shakespeare number of series of literary and historical criticism to accompany the Arden Shakespeare Third Series and Arden Early Modern Drama imprints. Arden Shakespeare The Arden Shakespeare is a long-running series of scholarly editions of the works of William Shakespeare. It presents fully edited modern-spelling editions of the plays and poems, with lengthy introductions and full commentaries. There have been three distinct series of the Arden Shakespeare over the past century, and the third series has not yet been completed. Arden was the maiden name of Shakespeare's mother, Mary, but the primary reference of the enterprise's title is named after the
History of the Shakespeare authorship question R.C. Churchill says that the first documented expression of doubt about Shakespeare's authorship came in 1760, in a farce entitled "High Life Below Stairs" in which a Miss Kitty poses the question: "Who wrote Shakespeare?" The Duke responds "Ben Jonson." Lady Bab then cries; "Oh, no! Shakespeare was written by one Mr. Finis, for I saw his name at the end of the book." Churchill writes that, while not a very "profound" joke, there "must have been, in the mid-eighteenth century, a certain amount of discussion as to the authenticity of the traditional authorship of Shakespeare, and the substitution of