BIG HOAX, LITTLE HOAX

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26847, 27 September 1952, Page 6

BIG HOAX, LITTLE HOAX

[By WHIM-WHAM] An American theatre critic . . . claims to have found new evidence to support the theory that Shakespeare's plays were the work of Christopher Marlowe . . . that Marlowe was alive after the date of his official" death and that his patron, Sir Francis Walsingham, paid Shakespeare to pass off as his own the. plays item° We Was wrtting abroad.—News And Some of my Readers may be interested to hear That George Bernard Shaw was not the Author of the Plays Published under his Name, and that Today’s Researches have brought to light Evidence which makes it clear That the whole Lot were cooked up in Collaboration between The late Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, John Galsworthy and the present Dean Of Canterbury, who for various and obvious Reasons were Anxious to remain Anonymous. Sir, The Initials G.B.S. can only stand For Galsworthy-Baldwin-Syndicate, and On the Evidence the Conclusion is hardly to be resisted, That no such Person as G, B. Shaw ever existed, Or if he did, was a literary Hoax worthy to be co-starred With old Phoney Phakespeare the Bogus Bard Of Stratford-upon-Avon, who didn’t write HIS Plays either; though I confess myself shaken By the new Marlowe Evidence, I’d always thought it was Bacon . . . But after All, you Jokers, What’s in a Name? (As Bacon or Marlowe says) I hate giving the Game Away but I think it’s Time for me to reveal That I am not the Writer of these Lines, the real Author (didn’t you guess?) is Sir C»rl B*r*nds*n, that Retired but very unretiring DiplomatSuch Wit, such Brilliance could be the Product of no other Pen Than that of B*r*nds*n. There! NOW I’ve let the Cat Out of the diplomatic cellophane Bag, Hey? What do You say?