

Transcribed from the 1909 Harper & Brothers edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org.  Proofing by Alan Ross, Ana Charlton and David.





                            IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?


                          FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

                                MARK TWAIN

                       HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
                           NEW YORK AND LONDON
                                M C M I X




CHAPTER I


Scattered here and there through the stacks of unpublished manuscript
which constitute this formidable Autobiography and Diary of mine, certain
chapters will in some distant future be found which deal with
"Claimants"--claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant; the
Golden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis
XVII., Claimant; William Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant;
Mary Baker G. Eddy, Claim