After five different handwriting styles were identified in the manuscript of the play Sir Thomas More (1595), the authorship was highly disputed. However, current understanding confirms that William Shakespeare was one of the authors and wrote the fragment depicted on our cover.

William Shakespeare (*1564, †1616), the most significant literary figure in the English-speaking world, left behind only a few examples of his handwriting. The play Sir Thomas More (1595) was written by five authors, and it is believed that one of them was Shakespeare. The manuscript of the play, which was later banned, is thought by literary scholars today to contain his original handwriting. The intolerance that prevailed in Elizabethan England prompted him to passionately defend refugees.

None of you will likely live very long, for ruffians will pounce upon you as their whims dictate, personally, arbitrarily, and selfishly, and men will devour one another like predatory fish.