Calvin Hoffman

Calvin Hoffman (born Leo Hochman ; * 1906 ; † February 1986 ) was an American journalist, press agent and writer. He popularized the Marlowe theory through his book .

In 1955, through his book "The Murder of The Man who Was Shakspeare", he made the pre-existing but little-known idea popular that it was not William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon , but Christopher Marlowe who was the author of Shakespeare's works in a documentary by Michael Rubbo, Much ado about something. At the end of the 19th century, Wilbur Gleason Zeigler had developed the theory in his book "It was Marlowe" that Christopher Marlowe must be the actual author of Shakespeare's works.

The theory favored and expanded by Calvin Hoffmann for Christopher Marlowe , like other important theories of authorship for Francis Bacon and Edward de Vere , Earl of Oxford, is still not accepted and rejected by the majority of Shakespeare experts, the so-called "Stratfordians".

Hoffman's theory

Timeline of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe

His expanded theory includes the following statements:

• Various details of the life of William Shakespeare from Stratford-on-Avon raise considerable doubts that he could have been the author of the works of William Shakespeare .
• Shakespeare first appeared in the age of 30 without previous or early works, shortly after the brilliant playwright and poet of the same age, Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, disappeared from the scene for good, ie “presumably” perished. (see picture)
• Marlowe's alleged death at Deptford on May 30, 1593 was not true. His death had been faked because important members of the Privy Council who supported him would otherwise have had to deliver him to the Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift and his Star Chamber for heresy and heresy and thus to death. Massive accusations of heresy on the day before his death made his real death extremely unlikely due to disputes over ordinary bill settlement.
• Marlowe fled into exile, initially to France and Italy, where he lived for many years before returning to England under a false name. He sent his manuscripts and sonnets to England, where they were published to the public under the name William Shakespeare, who acted as the " code name " of an existing person.

Hoffman collected hundreds of similar passages ("parallelisms") between the works of Marlowe and Shakespeare which, in his opinion, gave clear indications that Shakespeare and Marlowe were the same person.

Important Marlowe researchers such as Peter Farey and A. Dolly Wraight were first inspired to work on this topic through Hoffman's book. Hoffman and his wife bequeathed all of their fortune for an annual prize to the King's School in Canterbury , which Marlowe attended for an essay on the Shakespeare-Marlowe authorship issue .

Web links

• The Marlowe Society
• Mike Rubbo's Much ado about something

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary Los Angeles Times
2. ↑ Calvin Hoffman, The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare, 1955 Julian Messner Inc.
3. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 28, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ http://www.archive.org/stream/itwasmarloweast00WEISgoog#page/n9/mode/2up
5. ↑ http://www.doubtaboutwill.org/about_us
6. ↑ http://www.doubtaboutwill.org/
7. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
8. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 9, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.