In this book, I introduce a new method for determining the authorship of renaissance plays. This method relies on what I term socio-historical linguistic evidence. Simply put, the use of socio-historical linguistic evidence involves the determination and comparison of linguistic usages of renaissance dramatic authors: at this time the English language is changing so rapidly that it is possible to distinguish between the grammatical usages of certain writers, even though they are writing in the same place (London), and at the same time (c. 1590–1625).

The methodology I use to determine and compare linguistic usages is based on theories of language variation and change developed in the fields of socio-linguistics and socio-historical linguistics by William Labov and Suzanne Romaine (see Labov 1972, Romaine 1982). As I argue in the Introduction, the use of socio-historical linguistic evidence offers a more reliable means of resolving authorship debates surrounding Elizabethan and Jacobean plays than has previously been available.

This book is divided into three parts. The first part concerns the methodology of socio-historical linguistic evidence, and the grammatical features investigated in this particular study. It should be of particular interest to historical linguists and authorship scholars who want to understand the precise basis of the method. One of the strengths of socio-historical linguistic evidence as opposed to other current approaches to authorship, is that its basis should be readily appreciable by anyone familiar with the language or literature of the period: no statistical background is required.