The Project Gutenberg eBook, Is Shakespeare Dead?, by Mark Twain

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Is Shakespeare Dead?
from my Autobiography

Author: Mark Twain

Release Date: July 7, 2008 [eBook #2431]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?***

Transcribed from the 1909 Harper & Brothers edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org. Proofing by Alan Ross, Ana Charlton and David.

IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?

FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

MARK TWAIN

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
M C M I X

CHAPTER I

Scattered here and there through the stacks of unpublished manuscript
which constitute this formidable Autobiography and Diary of mine, certain
chapters will in some distant future be found which deal with
"Claimants"--claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant; the
Golden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis
XVII., Claimant; William Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant;
Mary Baker G. Eddy, Claimant--and the rest of them. Eminent Claimants,
successful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb
Claimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants, despised
Claimants, twinkle starlike here and there and yonder through the mists
of history and legend and tradition--and oh, all the darling tribe are
clothed in mystery and romance, and we read about them with deep interest
and discuss them with loving sympathy or with rancorous resentment,
according to which side we hitch ourselves to. It has always been so
with the human race. There was never a Claimant that couldn't get a
hearing, nor one that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no
matter how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be. Arthur
Orton's claim that he was the lost Tichborne baronet come to life again
was as flimsy as Mrs. Eddy's that she wrote _Science and Health_ from the
direct dictation of the Deity; yet in England near forty years a