Shakespeare authorship question
Some people say that some of the works attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon were not actually written by him. The scientific argument behind this claim is known as the Shakespeare authorship question. Anti-Stratfordians say Shakespeare of Stratford was a fake name to hide the identity of the real author or authors. These authors did not want their real names to become public, for various resons. Although the idea has attracted much public interest, all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a conspiracy theory and for the most part acknowledge it only to rebut or disparage the claims, for example James Shapiro wrote a book arguing that Shakespeare was the person who wrote Shakespeare’s plays.