Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, Henry James, Sigmund Freud, and Charlie Chaplin all doubted that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon was the true author of the dramatic masterpieces that bear his name. Correspondent Al Austin investigates the l... (more)atest controversial theory that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, a poet and intimate of Queen Elizabeth 1, was the real Shakespeare.