Aside from Sir Francis Bacon and Edward de Vere, here are biographies of the front-runners in the race for Shakespeare's crown.

Christopher Marlowe (1564–93)

There can be no doubt that Christopher Marlowe was one of the great playwrights of the Elizabethan era, a talent equal to Shakespeare. But was he Shakespeare?

Marlowe's literary achievements during the short period of time he was actively writing are remarkable. Before leaving Cambridge, he had written Tamburlaine the Great, Parts I and II, which brought him acclaim. That was followed by Doctor Faustus, Edward II, and The Massacre at Paris.

His last play was probably The Jew of Malta. Then the 29-year-old poet/ playwright was killed in a tavern brawl at Dame Eleanore Bull's tavern in Deptford, reputedly over payment of a dinner bill. It seems there was a quarrel and Marlowe drew his dagger against his friend Ingram Frizer, who drove his own dagger into Marlowe's eye.

Marlowe's violent end came during the month of May 1593. The wealth of Shakespeare's great plays were written in the 15 years following Marlowe's untimely demise.

Today's champions of Marlowe, who call themselves Marlovians, profess that he didn't actually die, but rather that the death was a staged coverup. The young playwright found it prudent to disappear in name to avoid execution on the charges of heresy and blasphemy. Marlowe had pleaded that the archbishop of Canterbury — who wrote a note saying there was need to “stop the mouth of so dangerous a member of Christian Society” — had falsely charged him.

But the accusations were serious, and the Privy Council issued orders for Marlowe's arrest on charges of heresy. According to the informer Richard Baines, Marlowe had ranted that Moses was but a juggler, that Christ's miracles were naught, and that Christ was a sexual pervert who indulged in sodomy with the beloved disciple, John.

Marlowe had also been charged for indulging in pederasty, saying that men were fools who did not like boys. Marlovians say their champion had no choice but to go into hiding and continue writing — as Shakespeare.

The mystery of Marlowe's death is covered in Calvin Hoffman's book, The Murder of the Man Who Was “Shaklespeare,” and is further discussed in Anthony Burgess's A Dead Man in Deptford.

Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson, in To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, wrote these lines:

Soul of the age!
The applause, the delight, the wonder of our stage!
Mr Shakespeare rise.

Does Jonson's eulogy sound like the voice of a man who would usurp Shakespeare's literary crown? Ben Johnson (1572–1637) was a close associate of William Shakespeare.

He also made a mark second only to Shakespeare in the public theater. His comedies Valpone or The Foxe and The Alchemist were among the most popular and acclaimed plays of the period. He certainly had no need to write under the name Shakespeare.

William Stanley, Sixth Earl of Derby

Stanley is a major contender, mostly because he was everything Shakespeare wasn't: He was a direct descendent (through his mother) to the Tudor king, Henry VII; educated at Oxford; studied law; and traveled to Italy, Spain, and France. He was also raised in the area where many of the scenes in Shakespeare's plays took place.

He invited acting companies to perform in his home and there tried his skill as an actor. His followers say he wrote plays for the public theater, but no such works have been found inscribed with his name.

Roger Manners, Fifteenth Earl of Rutland

Manners, although less popular a candidate than William Stanley, was well educated, having studied at Cambridge for seven years. He also traveled in Europe for five years, where he attended the University of Padua. To write Shakespeare's plays he had to be a prodigy, as the poem Venus and Adonis was published when he was only 16. He died in 1612, four years before Shakespeare.

Queen Elizabeth I

The queen is a delightful candidate. She knew Greek and Latin, wrote poetry, and loved to attend plays or have them performed at her court. At a session of parliament she once used the term swaying scepter, which her followers have said is a slight variation of the name Shakespeare, the name Elizabeth took to write the plays. They say she even left clues by matching episodes in the plays that paralleled events that occurred in her reign and her private life.

In the Epilogue in Henry VIII there are these words: “Tis ten to one this play can never please?” At the time there were ten kings in Europe and the one queen. Believers use this as a clue to their claim.

Yet, in All's Well That Ends Well there are unseemly remarks about the queen's virginity. It seems unlikely that Elizabeth would write a play that criticized her as the reigning monarch. The major impediment to Elizabeth's authorship is that many of the plays were presumably written after her death in 1603.

King James I

First, let's say King James looked nothing like Shakespeare or his predecessor, Queen Elizabeth. Except for the splendor of his silver-threaded attire, he was an ordinary-looking man with brown hair and a ruddy complexion. His appearance — as a court jester once noted during the king's reign — was “tolerable.” An Italian visitor to the court once said he was “handsome, noble, jovial, a man happily formed, neither fat or thin, of full vitality.”

There was no mention of the king's idiosyncrasies. Like many Elizabethans of the time, he never bathed or washed, believing bathing to be unhealthy. The king would sometimes dip his fingertips in rosewater. Even though his odor was masked by perfume, courtiers were careful to hold their breath as he passed.

King James, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, had been James VI of Scotland before ascending to the English throne. He loved the theater and changed the name of the Lord Chamberlain's Men to the King's Men. His followers say he used the nom de plume “Shakespeare” so that he could govern England without being termed “That Playwright” by foreign envoys.