Attrib. Shakespeare
Sir: I'm obliged to Dr Rowse (Letters, 14 June) for his kind words. However, it is not `conservative' but anti-historical to claim that we know all the Shakespeare there is. On explicit contemporary testimony, as recorded by John Aubrey and others, there are also popular plays dating from the so-called lost years, c.1582-92. Two of them are identified by Germaine Greer in her recent book on Shakespeare, namely Contention and True Tragedy, his early versions of 2-3 Henry VI. Another, Ed- ward III, has the support of Richard Proudfoot, general editor of the Arden Shakespeare; it is to be published by Cambridge University Press in an edition by the late Eliot Slater which will detail the very compelling evidence for Shakespear- ian attribution.
All these three plays are plainly in the same style as Edmund Ironside, as I point out in a new preface for its forthcoming paperback edition. I think Dr Rowse's first thoughts were best, over-generous or not. Eric Sams
21 Arundel Avenue, Sanderstead, Surrey
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