The first scientifically based proof of who contemporaries of Shakespeare said he was. A recent discovery of Ben Jonson's avowal that Shakespeare was Edward de Vere, combined with Thomas Thorpe's encrypted dedication to de Vere as the author of Shakespeare's Sonnets, establishes the Earl of Oxford as the poet who used Shakespeare as a penname. The book also answers all previous objections, refutes previous biographies of Shakespeare, and solves every major question concerning the playwright.