The known facts about the life of William Shakespeare are critically re-examined for evidence that is both necessary and sufficient for him to have authored the works that bear his name. Against this, the recent discovery of Lord Oxford's written admission that he wrote the Sonnets: backed by Ben Jonson's avowal that Oxford wrote under the penname Shakespeare and he should be tested to verify this fact, have now been conclusively validated. Added to this are the separate affirmations, also validated, by Leonard Digges, Thomas Thorpe, and Henry Peacham: each endorsing Oxford's claim to authorship. These discoveries have required a clinical reassessment of Shakepeare's plays and poetry, revealing much that is biographical to Oxford. The same analysis has also revealed the names of the Fair Youth, the Rival Poet and his poems, and the identity of the Dark-eyed Mistress. 'Proving Shakespeare' is a companion to the Roland Emmerich film 'Anonymous'; while adding further information to its story-line, it also corrects the secret concealed behind Oxford's hidden identity.

This book examines and analyses the evidence proposed in support of Shakespeare as the author of the plays and poems published under that name. The evidence is compared to the alternative proposal that Shakespeare acted as an allonym for the Earl of Oxford, whose homo-erotic Sonnets addressed to the teenage Earl of Southampton, and the plays characterizing members of Elizabeth's court, made it imperative that he should not be identified with their content. Confirmation of this truth is confirmed by Jonson, Nashe, Chettle, Thorpe, Marsden, and Digges, who relied upon innuendo, puns, and the latest discovery in cryptology by the mathematician, Cardano, to assert what had happened. In this age of censorship, William Camden also confirmed the existence of a conspiracy by the present powers to extinguish this memory from future generations.