Editor's Note

Because of the long history and intensity of the debate concerning who authored Shakespeare's work, we thought it useful to introduce the Commentaries to follow with brief academic biographies of the authors participating in this “In Focus” section:

Richard M. Waugaman, MD, received his AB from Princeton, where he majored in philosophy, and wrote his senior thesis on Nietzsche and Freud under Walter Kaufmann. He earned his MD from Duke Medical School. He did his psychiatric residency at Sheppard-Pratt Hospital in Towson, MD. 90 of his 190 publications are on Shakespeare and the Shakespeare authorship debate.

Paul Menzer is a Professor and Director of the Shakespeare and Performance Graduate Program at Mary Baldwin University, where he serves as Dean of the College of the Visual and Performing Arts. His forthcoming biography, The Complete Life of William Shakespeare from Bloomsbury, will appear in 2021.

Madelon Sprengnether is Regents Professor Emerita of the University of Minnesota. She has published extensively on Shakespeare, Freud, feminism, and psychoanalysis. Her book publications include The (M)other Tongue: Essays in Feminist Psychoanalytic Interpretation , Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender , The Spectral Mother: Freud, Feminism and Psychoanalysis , and Mourning Freud .

Allen R. Dyer is Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He is a graduate of Brown University and holds an MD and a PhD in Religion, both from Duke University. He is a graduate of the UNC-Duke Psychoanalytic Institute. He is the author of several books, including Ethics and Psychiatry: Toward Professional Definition, and he is co-author of Concise Guide to Ethics in Mental Health Care.

Alan H. Nelson is Professor Emeritus in English at the University of California, Berkeley. His specializations are paleography, bibliography, and Early Modern biography from documentary sources. He is the author of Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de V