Irvin Leigh Matus
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Irvin Leigh Matus, born July 25, 1941, in Brooklyn, New York, is an author and library researcher based in Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
Matus has written books, articles and reviews on various subjects, but is best known as a writer on the issue of Shakespearean authorship, taking the position of a Stratfordian, an advocate of the position that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, and no other, was the author of the plays attributed to him.
Matus advanced this position in the October 1991 issue of The Atlantic Monthly entitled The Case for Shakespeare. In the same issue, Tom Bethell wrote The Case for Oxford, in which he argued that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was the actual author Shakespeare's plays. This view is called Oxfordianism, and is currently the most popular alternate theory of the authorship of Shakespeare's works.
In Shakespeare, In Fact (Continuum, 1999), Matus examines Oxfordian claims in detail and presents criticism of them while providing evidence for the Stratfordian position.
Also in the Shakespeare realm, Matus wrote Shakespeare, the Living Record (Palgrave Macmillan, 1991), a travelogue of modern day England pertaining to persons and places mentioned in Shakespeare.
External links
- The Case for Shakespeare (http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/shakes/matus.htm) from the Atlantic Monthly (online)
- Irvin Leigh Matus Shakespeare website (http://www.willyshakes.com)
- Article about Vitagraph Studios (http://urbanography.com/urban/0006/index.htm)