Shakespeare is quite possibly the greatest writer of all times, or at least the most renowned. However, doubts that the man William Shakespeare, from Stratford-upon-Avon, was actually the genius that created the amazing works attributed to him, have been circulating for more than two hundred years. Many well-known and respected people have questioned the Stratford man's abilities to write such works-- including Mark Twain and Sigmund Freud. There are many candidates for the authorship, but Edward de Vere, often called Oxford, is the number one candidate for the greatest controversy in literature today.
             A full account of Shakespeare's life does not exist. It is commonly accepted that he was born in 1564, and it is known that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon (Hieatt, 1998). Many doubt the literacy of his relatives:
             Shakespeare's whole family were illiterate. He was the first of his race we know of who was able to read and write. His father and mother, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and cousins--all signed their names, on the few occasions when they were obliged to sign them, with crosses. His daughter Judith could not read or write. The whole population around them were in the same condition....It would indeed be a miracle if out of this vulgar, dirty, illiterate family came the greatest genius, the profoundest thinker, the broadest scholar that has adorned the annals of the human race (Hope, 1992, p. 48) .
             He was probably educated at the local grammar school (Hieatt, 1998). No one even knows for a fact whether or not he went to school. There are no documents establishing that he attended a school in Stratford (Hope, 1992), and no one who did attend ever admitted being classmates with him (Bethell, 1991).
             Joseph M. English, Jr., a documents examiner with the forensic-science laboratory at Georgetown University, gave his opinion that the only six remaining signatures we have of...