Gondez The Monk
William-Henry Ireland's footnote in history is secure: he is the boy who forged Shakespeare. In late 1794, Ireland, then only 17 years old, claimed he had discovered a trunk of Shakespearean documents, which included legal papers, love letters, lost poems, portraits, correspondences between Shakespeare and Leicester, Shakespeare and Southampton, Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare adn his printer, signed and annotated books from Shakespeare's library, the original manuscript ofKing Learadn a fragment ofHamlet, both with significant variants--even a lock of Shakespeare's hair. The greatest prize of all, however, was the discovery of a lost Shakespeare playVortigern. The play was stage at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 2 April 1796; it failed, in large measure due to the plans of Edmond Malone, who, fearing that his pre-eminence among Shakespeare scholars might be undermined by the "lost" play, had his friends boo and jeer the work off stage. Malone was aided in this schemes by John Phillip Kemble, who played the lead with purposeful imcompetence. Support for the play was substantial: Boswell thought the play genuine, as did Samuel Parr and Joseph Warton. As audience factions alternatively booed adn cheered Kemble, a riot broke out and further performances were cancelled. Soon after, Ireland stepped forward, admitting that he had authored the play and the aforesaid documents.About the Editor:Jeffrey Kahan completed his Ph.D. on W.H. Ireland's "Shakespeare Papers" at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, in 1993.He is the author of Ireland study,Reforging Shakespeare(1998), and has edited Ireland'sVortigernandHenryIIas part of his multivolume setShakespeare Imitations, Parodies and Forgeries, 1710-1820(2004). He is the editor ofThe Poetry of William-Henry Ireland(2004)andRimualdo; or, The Castle of Badajos(2005). He is an Assistant Professor at the University of La Verne in California.