More from the people we talked to.

2. Jonathan Bate,

Author of The Genius of Shakespeare.
Jonathan Bate was born in 1958. He is King Alfred professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool, and was previously a fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Professor Bate has lectured on Shakespeare throughout the world, and has held visiting posts at held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale, The Unversity of California and the Folger Shakespeare library in Washingotn DC. He edited the new Arden edition of Titus Andronicus (1195). His first novel, The Cure for Love is published by Picador. He is presently working on a book on John Clare, the Northhamptonshire peasant poet, 1793-1864.

3. Mark Rylance,

Artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, London.As well as being artistic director, Mark has lead roles in many Globe productions. He also plays in feature films.
Mark Rylance trained at RADA and with Barbara Bridgmont at the Chrysalis Theatre School, Balham, London.
He is best known for his Shakespearean work, including the acclaimed "Hamlet" for the Royal Shakespeare Company, of which he is an associate artist. He was named Best Actor at the Laurence Olivier Awards in April 1994 for his performance as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. His New York debut in Henry V won the 1993 Lucille Lortel Award for Best Off-Broadway Revival.
At the Globe, he has played

Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1996),
The title role in Henry V (1997),
Mr Allwit in Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1997),
Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice (1998),
Hippolito in Dekker's The Honest Whore (1998).

On television, Rylance starred in the award-winning

The Grass Arena (1991), for which he was named Radio Times Best Newcomer,
Love Lies Bleeding,
In Lambeth and Loving (1995).

Mark's film credits include

Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books (1991)
Institute Benjamenta or This Dream People Call Human Life (1995), directed by the Brothers Quay
Angels and Insects (1995)
Hearts of Fire
Intimacy

4. John Michell,

Author of the book, Who wrote Shakespeare. Thames and Hudson.
Renowned writer John Michell has studied the authorship of Shakespeare over many years. His enthralling investigation of the evidence and the arguments for the various candidates, not forgetting Shakespeare himself, reads like a series of detective stories. His dryly humorous commentary on the research and prejudices of the theorists, together with his own insights, will have even the most faithful disciples of the bard questioning who wrote Shakespeare.

6. John Hunt.

Canterbury bookseller.
I’m a Marlowe enthusiast. There’s almost an inevitability about how I got hooked. At 15, I played third monk in the Pope’s Banquet scene in Dr.Faustus, not knowing how prophetic that tonsured wig was to become. After a spell as a systems analyst for Mobil Oil, I opened a bookshop in Canterbury, in the shadow of the Cathedral. Soon after opening, I met William Urry, the legendary Cathedral Archivist (“Canterbury under the Angevin Kings”) who told me how auspicious it was that a bookshop had opened on this site since it was where Christopher Marlowe’s uncle, a grocer named George Auncell, had once lived. I thought I knew a little about Marlowe but found that I knew nothing. Urry gave me a copy of Marlowe’s family tree, which has never been published & I stillcherish it.

Next Marlowe occurrence. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any Marlowe?” an American voice asked me one day. “’Course I’ve got Marlowe, & what’s more you’re standing in the only vernacular building that you can say with some certainty Marlowe walked in”. “No he didn’t.” “Yes he did!”.

It was Calvin Hoffman on one of his frequent forays to The King’s School Canterbury to whom he left his poisonous legacy. This was a six-figure sum, half of which could be won if you could prove “to the satisfaction of the world of Shakespearean scholarship that all the poems & plays attributed to Shakespeare” were by Marlowe.

Some time later, I met Dolly Walker-Wraight. She too enthused me. Up until then I had stayed clear of Marlovians. However, I soon found most Marlovians to be a bunch of like-minded enthusiasts, although I was present at a lecture by Charles Nichol where I saw the fanatical side of the followers of Marlowe. Charles very good-naturedly put up with some severe heckling by them. That worried me. Still I had to join the Marlowe Society and still belong. Surely a Canterbury bookseller should stand up & be counted in support of Canterbury’s most famous literary son.

I read more & more. All the standard biographies of Marlowe. To Dr Wolfgang Deninger I am indebted for all the books on Marlowe he gave me. I discovered Leslie Hotson, not just for his report on the inquest on Marlowe but also for his ideas on the nature of the Elizabethan stage. Inevitably I read wider & wider, talked to more people, other enthusiasts, academics. Tried not to let the authorship question, however intriguing, dominate thoughts on Marlowe.

I became the Vice-Chairman of the Marlowe Society & have bored more people than I care to acknowledge about Marlowe. But at least he is now more known around Canterbury. He spearheads Canterbury’s bid to become European City of Culture . And so I met Mike Rubbo at an AGM of the Marlowe Society at The George Inn in Southwark. The George is just round the corner from where Marlowe shared a workroom with Kydd. Rubbo proposed a film about Marlowe? Good grief, that will be boring, nothing to show, just talking heads. Shows how wrong you can be.

John and Sue run Albion Books, Canterbury, for any books by or about Marlowe.

9. Peter Farey.

Management consultant, has an excellent web site on Marlowe.
"Peter Farey has had an interest in Christopher Marlowe from his schooldays when, as member of Marlowe house at Dulwich College, he had to compete at rugby, cricket, athletics, boxing, swimming, singing and acting, all on behalf of 'Marlowe'. Not that he knew much about who Marlowe actually was until, in the early 'fifies, he was lucky enough to be allowed into the dress rehearsal of Marlowe's play; Tamburlaine the Great at the Old Vic, with Donald Wolfit in the title role. From then on, he was hooked.

Peter worked for what is now British Airways for over thirty years, before leaving (while they were still doing very well, he points out!) to become a freelance management development consultant. It was on a trip to New York for BA in the sixties that, in a copy of Esquire magazine, he noticed an article on Calvin Hoffman's theory about who really wrote the works of Shakespeare and, although he didn't think much of Hoffman's book, has had an interest in this theory ever since.

Peter comes from a theatrical background, and was a founder-member of the UK's National Youth Theatre back in 1956. He has had a life-long love of acting, but his main passion has always been Shakespeare. When not arguing with 'Stratfordians' on the internet, he is a regular performer in poetry readings, offered monthly at his local theatre by the Wildcard Theatre Company."

10. John Baker.

John is an independent scholar who has been interested in Marlowe for four decades. John has Masters in Political Philosophy and International Affairs.

He has been widely published on Marlowe and Shakespeare matters and made important biographic discoveries about Marlowe's and Shakspeare's orthodox life. John is a member of the Marlowe Societies of England and America, has attended and presented papers on Marlowe and the authorship question at various universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, and is a board member of the Shakespeare Authorship Round Table.

John has been a major contributor to the Internet discussion group championing the Marlovian cause and maintains a popular Website on the authorship question, which has been visited by over a hundred thousand persons. John has entered the Hoffman Prize in each year the prize has been offered, but has never been selected by the Stratfordian adjudicators. John has known or corresponded with Marlovians from all over the world.

He is also a published authority on English handwriting, and has authenticated the manuscripts of Henry IV and Timon. He is a Reverend Doctor and a Bishop in the American FellowshipChurch.

11. Dolly Walker-Wraight.

Marlowe scholar author of several books on Marlowe.
A. D. Wraight (Dolly Walker- Wraight) 1920 - 2002. Dolly Walker-Wraight the historian, teacher and Marlowe specialist who died on 15th February 2002 aged 81, was a woman of enormous energy and passion. Throughout her life she espoused many causes, all of them with utter conviction and single-mindedness.

Her greatest cause, the restoration of Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe's reputation, and the mission to prove that he was the true author of Shakespeare's plays, dominated the last forty years of her life.

Her interest in Marlowe began in 1956 when the American writer, Calvin Hoffman, who wrote the controversial book; The Man who was Shakespeare, visited England. Dolly always maintained that her interest began with an intention to prove Hoffman wrong but she was quickly hooked and soon began lecturing on her own theories which centred around an interpretation of Shakespeare's sonnets. She also joined the Marlowe Society, and began a drama branch to revive the rarely performed plays of Marlowe and his contemporaries. In 1965, she published an illustrated biography In Search of Christopher Marlowe, in collaboration with the American photographer, Virginia Stern.

She resumed her research in 1983 when she retired from teaching. Several books followed: Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn (1993) The Story that the Sonnets Tell, (1994), and New Evidence (1996) Her final book, The Legend of Hiram which explores the links between Marlowe, Shakespeare and the Freemasons, was completed just before she died.

Dolly's knowledge of Marlowe and the period was formidable and her writing was enlivened by her overpowering love and admiration for the poetry of the works. Her single-minded conviction brooked no dissent and she engaged in some notable battles with scholars who held other views. But her enthusiasm also won many admirers and supporters to her cause. She maintained a prolific correspondence on Marlowe and lectured widely.

She maintained her links with the Marlowe Society throughout, serving variously as secretary, editor of their newsletter, Chair and Vice-Chair. She was closely linked with the campaigns to raise Marlowe's profile in Canterbury, his birthplace, and in Westminster Abbey where, in July 2002, he is finally to be honoured in Poets' Corner. Marlowe's reputation is now probably higher than at any time since the sixteenth century and for that Dolly must take much credit.

Born April 24th 1920 in Java
Married Robert Wraight 1940 / divorced 1963
Froebel Teachers Diploma - 1958
Teacher Dulwich College Preparatory School - 1961 - 1967
Teacher William Tyndale School - 1969 - 1974
Teacher Dulwich College Preparatory School - 1975 - 1983
Died February 15th 2002

Publications:

In Search of Christopher Marlowe - 1965
Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn - 1993
The Story that the Sonnets Tell - 1994
New Evidence - 1996
The Legend of Hiram - to be published 2002

13. Stanley Wells

Stanley Wells is Director of the Shakespeare institute, Stratford-upon-Avon and general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare. He is also co editor of The Oxford Shakespeare: The complete works. His also author of Shakepeare and his Plays. “A lively, comprehensive, eminently readable study of Shakespeare’s plays. “ Sunday Times.

14. Charles Nicholl

Author of the Reckoning. Picador 1992.
Charles Nicholl belongs to an elite company, that of historians who know how to make research into arcane matters and distant times as engrossing as; In Cold Blood or All the President’s Men. He is the author of Screaming in the Castle, The Reckoning, A Cup of News, The Fruit Palace, and Borderlines. He lives with his family in Lucca, Italy.

16. Peter and Frieda Barker

Members of the Marlowe society.
"Frieda and I are retired school teachers who share a love of theatre, especially Shakespeare. Our lives were taken over by Christopher Marlowe as a result of reading Dolly Wraight's book "The Story That The Sonnets Tell". I was moved to write to the author and we were invited to a Society meeting. The second meeting we attended, a need for a Membership Secretary and a Treasurer was voiced and we volunteered. The rest is history."