This was the heyday of higher criticism, which was claiming to have uncovered the multiple authorship of the Bible, and positing the composite nature of masterpieces like those attributed to Homer. It was also a period of rising bardolatry, the deification of Shakespeare's genius, and a widespread, almost hyperbolic veneration for the philosophical genius of Francis Bacon. Delia Bacon was influenced by these currents. Like many of her time, she approached Shakespearean drama as philosophical masterpieces written for a closed aristocratic society of courtiers and monarchs, and found it difficult to believe they were written either with commercial intent or for a popular audience. Puzzled by the gap between the bare facts of William Shakespeare's life and his vast literary output, she intended to prove that the plays attributed to Shakespeare were written by a coterie of men, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, for the purpose of inculcating a philosophic system, for which they felt that they themselves could not afford to assume the responsibility. This system she set out to discover beneath the superficial text of the plays. From her friendship with Samuel Morse, an authority on codes, and encryption for the telegraph, she learned of Bacon's interest in secret ciphers, and this prompted her own approach to the authorship question.