

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Scattered here and there through the stacks of unpublished manuscript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, Claimant--and the rest of them.  Eminent Claimants,
successful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb
Claimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants, despised
Claimants, twinkle starlike here and there and yonder through the mists
of history and legend and tradition--and oh, all the darling tribe are
clothed in mystery and romance, and we read about them with deep interest
and discuss them with loving sympathy or with rancorous resentment,
according to which side we hitch ourselves to.  It has always been so
with the human race.  There was never a Claimant that couldn't get a
hearing, nor one that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no
matter how flimsy and apparently unauth