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Edward III Shakespeare Authorship Settled 'Beyond Doubt' by New Study, With Marlowe as Collaborator
New research concludes 'beyond doubt' that Shakespeare was the principal author of the play Edward III, adding it to his canon, and identifies for the first time a major collaboration with Christopher Marlowe.
By Haut Monde Post
• October 18, 2026
• 3 Min Read
A play outside the First Folio
The authorship of the Edward III play has long sat on the edge of the Shakespeare canon. New work by Dr Rory Loughnane, a reader in early modern studies at the University of Kent who serves as general editor of the Oxford Marlowe editorial project, and Brett Greatley-Hirsch, professor of renaissance literature and textual studies at the University of Leeds, concludes 'beyond doubt' that Shakespeare was its principal author.
The play's disputed standing is long-standing:
- •It was published anonymously in 1596, though Shakespeare had long been credited with at least a few scenes.
- •It did not appear in the 1623 first folio collection of Shakespeare's plays.
- •For the 2016 New Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Works, Loughnane served as its editor, then crediting Shakespeare with only a couple of scenes; it also appeared in a 2005 volume.
Before this study, Loughnane had argued for Shakespeare's hand in the Canon and Chronology study in the New Oxford Shakespeare: Authorship Companion, while acknowledging a need for further research.
How the analysis worked
The pair used computerised textual analysis, setting the play against the securely attributed output of 10 dramatists writing between the late 1580s and the mid-1590s. One focus was the distribution of certain 'marker' words, such as 'martial', typical of Marlowe's plays and atypical in the work of other dramatists of the period.
In one test, 23 segments - described as 'the lion's share' - were identified as Shakespeare's writing, while nine segments were classified as Marlowe's. The analysis also confirmed individual speeches: one opening scene 13, in which King Jean says 'A sudden darkness hath defaced the sky…', as Shakespeare's, and one in the final scene, 'Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms, / The Frenchman's terror and his country's fame', as Marlowe's.
"Different forms of analysis, looking at different features of the language, appear to repeatedly distinguish Marlowe's writing"
That, Greatley-Hirsch said, is why the evidence is compelling.
Shakespeare and Marlowe, collaborators
The study is, in Loughnane's words, the first time the case for Marlowe as Shakespeare's collaborator on Edward III has been made seriously. It follows a 2016 study that found Marlowe, whose works include Doctor Faustus, was a co-author of Shakespeare's three Henry VI plays.
The researchers read the finding as evidence of a deeper working relationship between two dramatists born within weeks of each other. Working together on the play in 1592 points, Loughnane said, to a more sustained partnership in their mid-to-late 20s; Marlowe died aged just 29, after a brawl in a lodging house in 1593. They were, he said, not simply rivals or influences on one another.
"It has massive implications for our understanding of the relationship between the two most important dramatists"
Publication and next steps
The research will be published in the Shakespeare Quarterly later this year. Alongside it, two publications and an exhibition carry the work to readers:
- •Loughnane's book Shakespeare at Thirty, published by Princeton University Press, comes out this week.
- •The Making of Marlowe, an exhibition curated by Loughnane, remains open until 22 November at the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge in Canterbury.
