The movie Shakespeare in Love rekindled interest not only in the Bard's plays but also in the life of the playwright. Last April, Harper's published "The Ghost of Shakespeare," an article in which ten essayists debated the true author of the plays--William Shakespeare of Stratford or Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Jonathan Bate, a professor of English at the University of Liverpool, noted that the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays--the 1623 edition known as the First Folio--"was adorned with Martin Droeshout's famous woodcut of the dramatist, his forehead domed like the Globe, as if to gesture toward the name of his theater and the universality of his genius." Bate also noted that many parts of the Folio's front matter--the introductory text and commendatory poems--provide evidence that supports the Stratfordian position. It's difficult to read Bate's essay without wanting to see the First Folio. Fortunately for literary students and scholars worldwide, it now is available on the Web through Early English Books Online. Designed for academic libraries, EEBO offers images of the original pages in more than 96,000 historical literary works. It's a database that will create unprecedented research opportunities for many academic fields. It might even cause us to reevaluate our knowledge of history. As one head librarian said, it's a database that will help "bring literature alive."
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