by A. Phoenix.
During the period Bacon was writing his first Shakespeare tetralogy (I Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III) he also composed his Roman history of Titus Andronicus. It has been said by many orthodox scholars that Titus Andronicus is the first of the Shakespeare plays, and whether it is actually the first, it is certainly one of the earliest. Its exact date of composition is unknown. Various dates have been suggested generally ranging from 1588 through to 1594, the date of the publication of its first quarto published under the title The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus, that according to its title page was performed by three different playing companies ‘the Right Honourable the Earle of Darbie, Earl of Pembrooke, and the Earle of Sussex their Seruants’. Only one copy of the 1594 quarto is known to exist (it was first discovered in Sweden in 1904) which now resides in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington. A few years later, in 1909 a rare copy of the third quarto of Titus Andronicus was found among eight Shakespeare quartos at the Bacon family estate at Gorhambury most likely transferred from Bacon’s personal library in the old Gorhambury House, which were transferred for safe-keeping into the care of Bodleian Library, where they still remain to the present day.2 Could you imagine the headlines around the world if eight Shakespeare quartos were discovered in the house of Shakspere of Stratford or one of his relatives or descendants!
