author
active 19th century E. W. (Edward Walter) Smithson
Best known for writing on the Shakespeare authorship debate, this little-documented 19th-century writer argued for the Baconian view with calm, compact essays that later supporters continued to cite.
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Baconian Essays
by active 19th century E. W. (Edward Walter) Smithson
About the author
Project Gutenberg lists E. W. (Edward Walter) Smithson simply as an active 19th century author, and the surviving record appears to be very sparse. The work most clearly tied to him is Shakespeare-Bacon: An Essay (1899), a book published under the initials E. W. S. and later attributed to Edward Walter Smithson.
Smithson is associated with the Baconian side of the Shakespeare authorship question — the theory that Francis Bacon, rather than William Shakespeare of Stratford, wrote the plays. A later volume, Baconian Essays (1922), presents his work alongside material by Sir George Greenwood, whose introduction describes Smithson as a late friend and praises his earlier essay for attracting attention and helping the cause.
Because so little biographical information is readily confirmed, he is best remembered through his books rather than through a full personal history. What does come through is a writer engaged in one of literature's longest-running controversies, making a concise case that continued to circulate after his death.