Editing Shakespeare apocrypha (section)

== Plays attributed to Shakespeare after the 17th century ==
A number of anonymous plays have been attributed to Shakespeare by more recent readers and scholars. Many of these claims are supported only by debatable ideas about what constitutes "Shakespeare's style". Nonetheless, some of them have been cautiously accepted by mainstream scholarship.
* ''[[Arden of Faversham]]'' is an anonymous play printed in 1592 that has occasionally been claimed for Shakespeare. Its writing style and subject matter, however, are very different from those of Shakespeare's other plays. Full attribution is not supported by mainstream scholarship, though stylistic analysis has revealed that Shakespeare likely had a hand in at least scene VIII (the play is not divided into acts). [[Thomas Kyd]] is often considered to be the author of much of ''Faversham'', but still other writers have been proposed.
* ''[[Edmund Ironside (play)|Edmund Ironside]]'' is an anonymous manuscript play. [[Eric Sams]] has argued that it was written by Shakespeare, arguing that it is his earliest extant work, but has convinced few, if any, Shakespearean scholars.{{Citation needed|date=May 2009}}
* ''[[Sir Thomas More (play)|Sir Thomas More]]'' survives only in manuscript. It is a play that was written in the 1590s and then revised, possibly as many as ten years later. The play is included in the Second Edition of the Complete Oxford Shakespeare (2005), which attributes the original play to [[Anthony Munday]] and [[Henry Chettle]], with later revisions and additions by [[Thomas Dekker (writer)|Thomas Dekker]], Shakespeare and [[Thomas Heywood]]. A few pages are written by an author ("Hand D") whom many believe to be Shakespeare, as the handwriting and spellings, as well as the style, seem a good match. The attribution is not accepted by everyone, however, especially since six signatures on legal documents are the only verified authentic examples of Shakespeare's handwriting.
* ''[[Thomas of Woodstock (play)|Thomas of Woodstock]]'', sometimes also called ''Richard II, Part I'', is an anonymous late-sixteenth or early-seventeenth century play depicting the events leading up to the murder of [[Thomas of Woodstock]] and which occur immediately prior to the opening scenes of Shakespeare's history play ''[[Richard II (play)|Richard II]]''. ''Thomas of Woodstock'' survives only as an anonymous and untitled manuscript lacking its final page (or pages), part of the [[Egerton Collection]] deposited in the [[British Library]]. Because the play describes the events immediately prior to those set forth in ''Richard II'', some scholars have attributed the play to Shakespeare or suggested that it influenced Shakespeare's own play. Few of its editors, however, have supported the attribution to Shakespeare. [[Stylometry|Stylistic analysis]] led [[MacDonald P. Jackson]] to propose [[Samuel Rowley]] as a possible author in 2001.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Jackson | first1 = Macdonald P | year = 2001 | title = Shakespeare's ''Richard II'' and the Anonymous ''Thomas of Woodstock'' | journal = Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England | volume = 14 | pages = 17–65 }}</ref> Later scholars, most notably [[Michael Egan (author)|Michael Egan]], have tried to revive the attribution to Shakespeare.<ref>[[#Egan|Egan (2006)]]</ref>
* ''[[The Spanish Tragedy]]'', by [[Thomas Kyd]], is a play with elements reminiscent of ''[[Hamlet]]''. Recent [[Graphology|handwriting analysis]] suggests that portions may have been revised by Shakespeare.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/arts/further-proof-of-shakespeares-hand-in-the-spanish-tragedy.html?hp&_r=0 | work=The New York Times | first=Jennifer | last=Schuessler | title=Further Proof of Shakespeare's Hand in 'The Spanish Tragedy' | date=12 August 2013}}</ref> In 2013 the Royal Shakespeare Company published an edition attributing the play, in part, to William Shakespeare.{{sfn|Rasmussen|Bate|2013}}
* ''[[A Knack to Know a Knave]]''. Hanspeter Born has argued that Shakespeare rewrote some scenes in the romantic subplot of ''A Knack to Know a Knave'', tentatively attributed by some scholars to [[Robert Greene (dramatist)|Robert Greene]].<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Hanspeter | first1 = Born | year = 2012 | title = Why Greene was Angry at Shakespeare | journal = Medieval and Renaissance Drama | volume = 25 | pages = 133–173 }}</ref>