Francis Bacon signatures in the Shakespeare works
"To speak the truth of myself, I have often wittingly and willingly neglected the glory of my own name and learning ( if any such thing be) both in the works I now publish, and in those I contrive for hereafter, whilst I study to advance the good and profit of mankind."
The pages below demonstrate examples of Francis Bacon's name occuring as a hidden signature in the works of Shakespeare. Some of these, including the name hidden in the frontispieces of the Quartos, are shown here for the first time; the rest have been collated from a variety of Baconian sources. The idea is to bring together in one place all of the different methods that were used to sign the works, because it is the cumulative effect of such examples, in addition to the quality of the individual signatures, which must be taken into account. Such a collection of signatures as this therefore provides compelling witness to the identification and authentification of the Shakespeare plays and poems as the work of Sir Francis Bacon.
The list is restricted to occurences of the name which may be read off more-or-less directly from the text. Rearrangement of letters occurs in some cases, but the collection is not intended to include any Baconian codes or ciphers involving transpositions of letters or numbers or other complex crytographic schemes.
It's entirely possible, even probable, that some of these signatures have occurred randomly in the Shakespeare works due simply to the vast amount of text involved and the ordinary play of chance. Equally certainly however, there are many others shown which clearly demonstrate, beyond reasonable doubt, that they have been deliberately inserted into the text, by the use of confirmation features which effectively rule out chance as a possible origin for the presence of the name.
But either way, these pages show that Francis Bacon's name may be found throughout the works. Whether this came about by design or "co-incidence" is beside the point: the name is present as a concealed signature. Proof that Bacon is Shakespeare is to be found most securely in parallel passages; but his signatures seal the proof, as any artists mark does. As one wit observed: "If Bacon didn't write the Shakespeare plays, he missed the opportunity of a lifetime" because they've certainly been signed throughout on his behalf.
We begin with the poem of The Rape of Lucrece, which not only displays three obvious signatures, but which also establishes, as if setting precedents, the use of three distinct methods by which the name will be embedded in the texts again and again throughout the publishing history of the Shakespeare canon.
1. The Rape of Lucrece, with the three signature found at the beginning, middle and end of the poem.
2. The name hidden in plain sight along angled straight lines in the frontispieces of the early Quartos.
3. The name hidden as an acrostic in the margin in various places, including the opening pages of the First Folio (FF).
4. His initials placed in prominent positions throughout the FF and various poems.
5. The Booth string-cipher: the name hidden in the initial letters of the first words of the first lines of the FF, and elsewhere.
6. The Bacon family anecdote published in his jest-book, the Apophthegms, which also appears in Merry Wives of Windsor.
7. The "AB backwards" riddle in Love's Labors Lost and Two Gentlemen of Verona.
8.. The long word: "honorificabilitudinitatibus"
9. The word "free"
10. Some miscellaneous signatures