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Is Shakespeare Dead? from my autobiography by Mark Twain
page 76 of 80 (95%)
the records and find out the life-history of every renowned RACE-
HORSE of modern times--but not Shakespeare's! There are many
reasons why, and they have been furnished in cartloads (of guess
and conjecture) by those troglodytes; but there is one that is
worth all the rest of the reasons put together, and is abundantly
sufficient all by itself--HE HADN'T ANY HISTORY TO RECORD. There
is no way of getting around that deadly fact. And no sane way has
yet been discovered of getting around its formidable significance.

Its quite plain significance--to any but those thugs (I do not use
the term unkindly) is, that Shakespeare had no prominence while he
lived, and none until he had been dead two or three generations.
The Plays enjoyed high fame from the beginning; and if he wrote
them it seems a pity the world did not find it out. He ought to
have explained that he was the author, and not merely a nom de
plume for another man to hide behind. If he had been less
intemperately solicitous about his bones, and more solicitous about
his Works, it would have been better for his good name, and a
kindness to us. The bones were not important. They will moulder
away, they will turn to dust, but the Works will endure until the
last sun goes down.

MARK TWAIN.


P.S. March 25. About two months ago I was illuminating this
Autobiography with some notions of mine concerning the Bacon-
Shakespeare controversy, and I then took occasion to air the
opinion that the Stratford Shakespeare was a person of no public
consequence or celebrity during his lifetime, but was utterly
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