Outline
- A. Interdisciplinary–generally (history, legal history, literary criticism, law in English Early Modern period, etc. Some online biographies are listed at “Bacon on the Web” (last entry), this website, https://christinagwaldman.com/bacon-on-the-web/. Admittedly, nothing like a complete list of Bacon biographies is provided here, at this time.)
- B. Interdisciplinary–Bacon-related
- C. Shakespeare and law/rhetoric/equity
- D. Collected works of Francis Bacon
- E. Libraries and bibliographies; general reference
- F. Teaching/Learning law through Shakespeare
This selected, eclectic bibliography-in-progress will strive to be useful in spite of its brevity and incompleteness. The outline categories are arbitrary, based on titles. The emphasis will be on newer books. More in-depth bibliographies may be found in resources listed below, including my book, Francis Bacon’s Hidden Hand (275-303). Categories may overlap. A word of caution is justified regarding any source which still cites as authority on Francis Bacon’s character unreliable Thomas Babington MacAuley’s “deplorable” 19th century essay on Bacon, despite persuasive evidence of its lack of credibility (see, e.g., Nieves Matthews, Francis Bacon: The History of a Character Assassination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 17, 19-28, 33, 41, 48-49,53-54, et al.).
A. Interdisciplinary (including history, legal history, literary criticism, law in the English Early Modern period, etc.)–generally
Anker, Elizabeth and Bernadette Meyler, New Directions in Law and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 (essays).
Asquith, Claire. Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare. New York. Public Affairs, 2005.
—-Shakespeare and the Resistance. New York. Public Affairs, 2018. Looks at the Shakespeare poetry in the context of government repression and the Essex rebellion.
The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, 2 vols, edited by Bruce R. Smith (in assoc. with Katherine Rowe, with Tom Hoenselaars, Akiko Kusunoki, Andrew Murphy, Aimara da Cunha Resende). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016; online, 2019. https//doi.org/10.1017/9781316137062.110.
Condorelli, Orazio and Rafael Domingo, eds. Law and the Christian Tradition: The Legacy of the Great Jurists. London: Routledge, 2020. Copyright year 2021 (“This volume explores a millennium-long story of law and religion in Italy through a series of twenty-six biographical chapters written by distinguished legal scholars and historians from Italy and around the world.”). https://www.routledge.com/Law-and-the-Christian-Tradition-in-Italy-The-Legacy-of-the-Great-Jurists/Condorelli-Domingo/p/book/9780367857103.https://www.routledge.com/Law-and-the-Christian-Tradition-in-Italy-The-Legacy-of-the-Great-Jurists/Condorelli-Domingo/p/book/9780367857103.
Coquillette, Daniel R. The Civilian Writers of Doctors’ Commons, London: Three Centuries of Juristic Innovation in Comparative, Commercial, and International Law. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1988.
—-“Legal Ideology and Incorporation I [of IV]: The English Civilian Writers, 1523-1607.” Boston University Law Review 61 (1981). pp. 10-89.
Ferguson, Margaret W., A. R. Buck, and Nancy E.Wright. Women, Property, and the Letters of the Law in Early Modern England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
[Gentillet, Innocent], Anti-Machiavel: A Discourse upon the Means of Well Governing, translated by Simon Patericke, edited with introduction and modernized spelling and font by Ryan Murtha (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2018). (Reviewed by me in Modern Language Review, vol 115, July 2020, 682-684. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/427/article/822706).
Lemon, Rebecca. Treason by Words: Literature, Law, and Rebellion in Shakespeare’s England, 2d ed. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2007 [2006].
Mukherji, Subha. Law and Representation in Early Modern Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
McInnes, David. Shakespeare and Lost Plays: Reimagining Drama in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. His faculty page: https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/148627-david-mcinnis.
McSweeney, Thomas J. Priests of the Law: Roman Law and the Making of the Common Law’s First Professionals. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Meyler, Bernadette. Theatres of Pardoning. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2019.
—-“Law, Literature, and History: The Love Triangle,” 5 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 365 (2015).
Padovani, Andrea, L’Insegnamento Del Diritto A Bologna Nell’età Di Dante (Bologna: Societa Editrice Il Mulino, 2021) (“The teaching of the law in Bologna during the time of Dante”).
Shoaf, Lucretius and Shakespeare on the Nature of Things. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.
Stern, Simon, Maksymilian Del Mar, and Bernadette Meyler, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Verburgt, Lukas M. “The Works of Francis Bacon: A Victorian Classic in the History of Science,” Isis 112, no 4 (Dec. 2021). pp 717-736.
v Tella, María José Falcón, The Law in Cervantes and Shakespeare. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
Warren, Christopher N. Literature and the Law of Nations, 1580-1680. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Watt, Gary. Equity Stirring: The Story of Justice Beyond Law. Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2012.
White, R. S. Natural Law in English Renaissance Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996 (online 2009).
Wilson, Luke. Theatres of Intention: Drama and the Law in Early Modern England. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Ziolkowski, Theodore. The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal Crises. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
Zurcher, Andrew, Spenser’s Legal Language: Law and Poetry in Early Modern Europe. Rochester NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2007 (online, Cambridge University Press, Nov. 20, 2018).
B. Interdisciplinary–Bacon-related
Beal, Peter, intro. “Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, “Viscount St. Alban,” Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700,” https://celm-ms.org.uk/introductions/BaconFrancis.html.
Bryson, W. Hamilton. “Bacon, Example of a Treatise Touching Universal Justice,” and, “Sir Francis Bacon and Frederic William Maitland,” in The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture: 150 Books that Made the Law in the Age of Printing (Springer International Publishing) (2016). His publications page: University of Richmond School of Law, https://law.richmond.edu/faculty/hbryson/,
Castalian Spring, essays. “Essaying Bacon: Initiative Essays on Bacon’s Essays.” A two-year project beginning July 5, 2021. Castalian Spring,” Medium. https://medium.com/essaying-bacon.
Coquillette, Daniel R., Francis Bacon. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992.
—-“Past the Pillars of Hercules: Francis Bacon and the Science of Rule-Making.” University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 46, no 2 (2012). 549-592.
—-“‘The Purer Fountains’: Bacon and Legal Education.” In Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Early Modern Thought: Essays to Commemorate The Advancement of Learning (1605-2005), edited by Julie Solomon and Catherine Gilmetti Martin. New York: Routledge, 2016. Previously published as Boston College Law School Research Paper No. 52 (Jan. 27, 2005). Available at https://works.bepress.com/daniel_coquillette/.
du Maurier, Daphne. Golden Lads: Sir Francis Bacon, Anthony Bacon, and their Friends. New York: Avon Books, 1975 (pb). It seems that the author’s ancestor was a French diplomat during the Bacon brothers’ lifetime, which must partially account for her interest in the topic. Interspersed throughout, the author provides suggestive parallels and quotations from Bacon and Shakespeare, as if she is exploring the question of Bacon’s involvement with Shakespeare authorship, as she continues to do in The Winding Stair.
Henderson, Paula. “Sir Francis Bacon’s Essay ‘Of Gardens’ in Context,” Garden History, vol 36, no 1 (Spring, 2008), 59-84, JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25472394.
—-The Winding Stair: Sir Francis Bacon, His Rise and Fall. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1977.
“Francis Bacon,” Gray’s Inn, https://www.graysinn.org.uk/the-inn/history/members/biographies/francis-bacon/.
Jalobeanu, Dana. “Francis Bacon’s “Perceptive” Instruments,” Early Science and Medicine 25(6), 594-617 (2020). For Jalobeanu’s other writings on Bacon, see https://danajalobeanu.com/author/danajalobeanu/.
Jokinen, Anniina, “Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626),” Luminarium, copyright 1996–2010, http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/bacon/.
—-“Sir Francis Bacon: Additional Sources,” last updated October 19, 2006, http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/bacon/baconadd.htm (some links provided have expired).
Klein, Jurgen, “Francis Bacon,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, first published December 29, 2003, substantive revision December 7, 2012. Extensive bibliography. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-bacon/.
Learner, Mary and Morgan Souza. “The Editorial Mythopoeia of Sir Francis Bacon: William Rawley, New Atlantis, and Restoring Unperfection.” In Literary Archaeologies: Print to Digital. Intro. by Whitney Trettien. Creative Commons. May 16, 2016. https://sirbacon.org/The%20Editorial%20Mythopedia%20of%20Sir%20Francis%20Bacon.html.
Lewis, Rhodri. “Francis Bacon and Ingenuity”, Renaissance Quarterly 67 (2014), 113-63. For selected publications, see Rhodri Lewis, The Department of English at Princeton, https://english.princeton.edu/people/rhodri-lewis.
—-“Francis Bacon, Allegory and the Uses of Myth”, Review of English Studies 61 (2010), 360-89.
—-“A Kind of Sagacity: Francis Bacon, the ars memoriae and the Pursuit of Natural Knowledge”, Intellectual History Review 19 (2009), 155-77.
Matthews, Nieves. Francis Bacon: The History of a Character Assassination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
Rusu, Doina-Cristina. “Ants, Spiders, and Bees: Francis Bacon and the Method of Natural Philosophy,” Journal of Early Modern Studies, vol 9 (2020), 27-51. For Rusu’s other publications on Bacon, see ORCID.org, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7798-5205.
Sergeantson, Richard. “Key Publications,” Dr. Richard Sergeantson, University of Cambridge Department of History, https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/people/dr-richard-serjeantson. Dr. Sergeantson is co-director, with Alan Stewart, of the Oxford Francis Bacon Project. http://Oxford Francis Bacon.
Sessions, William, ed. The Legacy of Francis Bacon. Studies in the Literary Imagination vol 4, no 1 (April, 1971).
Shapiro, Barbara. A Culture of Fact: England, 1550-1720. Ithaca: Cornell University, 2000.
—-Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England, ch 5, 163-93 (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity, 1983).
—-“Sir Francis Bacon and the Mid-Seventeenth Century Movement for Law Reform,” 24 The American Journal of Legal History 331 (1980).
Stewart, Alan and Lisa Jardine, The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998. Reviews include Theodore K. Rabb, “Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir Francis?” Books, New York Times online, August 15, 1999 (“Bacon not depicted as likeable”), https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/15/reviews/990815.15rabblt.html; Brian Vickers, “Review of Alan Stewart and Lisa Jardine, Hostage to Fortune, Times Literary Supplement, June 12, 1998; Mather Walker, n.d., SirBacon.org, https://sirbacon.org/jardine.htm. For Stewart’s faculty page at Columbia University, Department of English and Comparative Literature, see https://english.columbia.edu/content/alan-stewart.
Vickers, Brian, ed. See https://research.london.ac.uk/search/fellow/162/professor-sir-brian-vickers/; https://brianvickers.uk/ (for full publications list)
—-Essential Articles for the Study of Francis Bacon. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1968.
—-“Bacon’s Use of Theatrical Imagery,” in William Sessions, ed. The Legacy of Francis Bacon. Studies in the Literary Imagination vol 4, no 1 (April, 1971), 189-226.
—-Francis Bacon and Renaissance Prose. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Vine, Angus. “Francis Bacon’s Composition Books.” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, vol 14, no 1 (2008, pp. 1-31, JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41155427.
Wheeler, Harvey (1919-2004), Essay: Francis Bacon’s Case of the Post-Nati:(1608); Foundations of Anglo-American Constitutionalism; An Application of Critical Constitutional Theory. Paper delivered at University of London symposium, 1999. http://www.sirbacon.org/wheelerpostnati.html. For a list of “Published Writings of Harvey Wheeler,” see http://www.sirbacon.org/wheelerbooks.html. Essays:
—-Francis Bacon’s “Verulamium”: the Common Law Template of The Modern in English Science and Culture. 1999. http://www.sirbacon.org/wheelerv.html.
—-Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis: A Foretaste of The Sciential Society. http://www.sirbacon.org/wnewatlanis.htm.
—-Bacon and Dr. Folkman’s Neo-Hermeneutics.2001. http://www.sirbacon.org/wheelerfolkman.htm.
—-Bacon’s Valerius Terminus Of the Interpretation of Nature with the Annotations of Hermes Stella. 2002 (commentary and introduction). http://www.sirbacon.org/wheelervt.htm.
—-The Semiotics of “Constitution” in England and America. 2002 (“Francis Bacon’s brief in Calvin’s Case was the “meme,” the institutional genome – the mimeme replicator, of constitutionalism for both England and America.”). http://www.sirbacon.org/wheelerconstitution.htm.
Wiley, Margaret L. “Francis Bacon: Induction and/or Rhetoric,” In William A. Sessions, ed., The Legacy of Francis Bacon. Studies in the Literary Imagination, vol 4, no 1 (April, 1971), 65-80.
Zagorin, Perez. Francis Bacon. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Regarding Bacon and poetry: 68, 69-70, 185-187, 214.
C. Shakespeare specifically and law/rhetoric/equity (For books on Bacon-Shakespeare authorship written by lawyers or judges, or published by legal publishers, but not confined to the topic “Shakespeare and law,” see “Bibliography–Bacon and Shakespeare–Chief,” this website. For a more complete source of works by “Oxfordian” writers, those who are researching Edward de Vere’s possible contribution to the Shakespeare works, see the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship website, https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/).
Newer (1970 and after)
Balestrieri. “Desacralized Law: Shakespeare and the Tragedy of Sovereignty.” Polemos. April 1, 2022.
Bander, Edward J. The Breath of an Unfee’d Lawyer: Shakespeare on Lawyers and the Law (New York: Catbird Press, 1996).
—-“Shakespeare for the Law Student,” 5 Duq. L. Rev. 53 (1966). Available at https://dsc.duq.edu/dlr/vol5/iss1/6/.
Bellioti, Raymond Angelo. Shakespeare and Philosophy: Lust, Love, and Law. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012.
Bellomo, Manlio. “Ius commune e Shakespeare: fra drammi e commedie,” 30 Rivista Internazionale di Diritta Commune 11 (2019). For a list of his publications, see https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/autor?codigo=173694. (Prof. Bellomo is the author of The Common Legal Past of Europe, 1000-1800. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995. Originally published as L’Europa del diritto commune. Rome: II Cigno Galileo Galilei, 1988).
Bunker, Nancy Mohrlock, Marriage and Land Law in Shakespeare and Middleton. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
Carpi, Daniela and Francois Ost. As You Law It: Negotiating Shakespeare. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018.
Circo, C. J. “An Everyday Lawyer’s Shakespeare,” Arkansas Law Notes. 10-21-2020. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/arlnlaw/3/. For his other publications, see https://works.bepress.com/carl_circo/.
—-“Rome, Shakespeare, and The Rule of Law,” The Arkansas Lawyer, Winter, 2020.
Conter, David. “Eagleton, Judge Posner, and Shylock v. Antonio.” Case Comment, 35 McGill L. J. 905 (1990). https://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/article/eagleton-judge-posner-and-shylock-v-antonio/.
Cormack, Bradin, Martha C. Nussbaum, and Richard Strier, eds. Shakespeare and the Law: A Conversation Among Disciplines and Professions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Corrigan, Brian Jay. Playhouse Law in Shakespeare’s World. Madison NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004.
Cummings, Michael. Shakespeare’s Lawyerly Language: With a Glossary of Legal Terms in His Work. Kindle. n.p.: n.p., 2019.
Curran, Kevin. Shakespeare’s Legal Ecologies: Law and Distributed Selfhood. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2017.
—-Shakespeare and Judgment. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2017.
Dunne, Derek. Shakespeare, Revenge Tragedy, and Early Modern Law: Vindictive Justice. Basingstoke, Hampshire (UK): Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016.
Fortier, Mark. Shakespeare’s Law. Abington, Oxon.: Routledge, 2022.
—-Literature and Law. London: Routledge, 2019.
Geng, Penelope, Communal Justice in Shakespeare’s England: Drama, Law, and Emotion. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2021.
Heinz, Eric. “Power Politics and the Rule of Law: Shakespeare’s First Historical Tetralogy and Law’s ‘Foundations,'” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 29, no. 1: 139–168. March, 2009. SSRN, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1349691.
Helmholz, R. H. “Shakespeare and the European ius commune,” ch 11. In Networks and Connections in Legal History. Edited by Michael Lobban and Ian Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2020.
J. D. E., “Shakespeare and the Legal Process: Four Essays.” Virginia Law Review, vol 61, no 2 (March 1975), 390-433, JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1072334.
Jenkins, Joseph S. Inheritance Law and Political Theology in Shakespeare and Milton: Election and Grace as Constitutional in Early Modern Literature and Beyond. London: Routledge, 2016. First published, Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2012.
Jordan, Constance and Karen Cunningham, The Law in Shakespeare. Basingstoke, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010 [2006].
Knight, W. Nicholas. Shakespeare’s Hidden Life: Shakespeare at the Law, 1585-1595. New York: Mason & Lipscomb, 1973 (Stratfordian).
Koenig, Melissa Love, “The Law in Shakespeare’s Works,” Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog, July 25, 2011, last accessed Nov. 22, 2022, https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2011/07/the-law-in-
Kornstein, Daniel. Kill All the Lawyers: Shakespeare’s Legal Appeal. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
—-Something Else: More Shakespeare and the Law. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2012.
Lemon, Rebecca. “Law,”ch 30, in part 5, Speculations, The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare. Edited by Arthur F. Kinney. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Meron, Theodor. Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws: Perspectives on the Law of War in the Later Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993; online edn., Oxford Academic, March 22, 2012.
Nelson, T. G. A. “Impediments” in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.” Parergon, no 2. Jan. 1, 1984. Launched on MUSE, April 3, 2013, DOI:10.1353/PGN.1984.0005.
Neves, Jose Roberto de Castro, “Measure for Measure: The Law in Shakespeare,” in O Mundo e um Palco: Shakespeare 400 Anos: um Olhar Brasileiro, by Fernanda Montenegro, Gustavo Henrique Barroso Franco, Liana Leão, Joaquim Falcão, José Roberto de Castro Neves, José Ernesto Bologna, and Theófilo Silva, preface by Pedro Bial. In Portuguese. Rio de Janeiro: Edições de Janeiro, 2016 (links to WorldCat.org).
—-“Shakespeare and Gray’s Inn,” Graya, no. 72. Michaelmas. London: Geoffrey Hawker, 1970.
Raffield, Paul. The Art of Law in Shakespeare. Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2017.
—-Shakespeare’s Imaginary Constitution: Late-Elizabethan Politics and the Theatre of Law. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2010.
—-Shakespeare’s Strangers and English Law. Forthcoming, Oxford: Hart Publishing, Jan. 26, 2023.
—-and Gary Watt, eds. Shakespeare and the Law. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008.
Regnier, Tom. “Could Shakespeare Think Like a Lawyer? How Inheritance Laws Issues in Hamlet May Shed Light on the Authorship Question,” 57 U. Miami L. Rev. 377 (2003), available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umlr/vol57/iss2/4.
—-Interview. “Podcasts,” episode 2, ‘The Law in Hamlet.’ The Shakespeare Underground. accessed Nov. 22, 2022. https://www.theshakespeareunderground.com/the-law-in-hamlet/.
—-Publications page, “Tom Regnier: Attorney, Appeals” (including works on Shakespeare and law), https://sites.google.com/site/thomasregnier/.
—-“Hamlet: Death, Property, and the Pursuit of Justice,” Shakespeare as Lawyer, Critical Stages, ed. Don Rubin. December, 2018, no 18, https://www.critical-stages.org/18/shakespeare-as-lawyer-hamlet-death-property-and-the-pursuit-of-justice/
Restivo, Giuseppina. “The Law in Shakespeare’s Theatre,” ch 84. In The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. vol. 1 (of 2). Edited by Bruce R. Smith, Katherine Rowe, Tom Hoenselaars, Akiko Kusunoki, Andrew Murphy, and Aimara da Cunha Resende. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2016; online, 2019. 649-657. https//doi.org/10.1017/9781316137062.110.
Ross, Charles Stanley. Elizabethan Literature and the Law of Fraudulent Conveyance: Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare. Aldershot UK, Ashgate, 2003.
—-“Shakespeare’s Merry Wives and the Law of Fraudulent Conveyance.” Renaissance Drama, New Series, vol 25, Renaissance Drama and the Law (1994), pp. 145-189, JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41917309.
Sarnicke, Melissa. “Did He or Didn’t He: Did Shakespeare Study Law? That is the Question.” Juris Magazine, October 21, 2015.
“Shakespeare and the Law Archives,” Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/category/shakespeare-and-law/.
Senn, Mark A. “Shakespeare and the Land Law in his Life and Works,” 48 Real Property Trust and Estate Law Journal (May 1, 2013), 111-216. Available from the American Bar Association, https://www.americanbar.org/ (search the site for “Shakespeare”); also at JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24570832.
Sokol, B. J. and Mary Sokol, Shakespeare, Law, and Marriage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Bibliography, Cambridge Core, online Sept. 22, 2009, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/shakespeare-law-and-marriage/bibliography/8F158400C98BB86A79D7060CD464F5D4.
—-Shakespeare’s Legal Language: A Dictionary. London: Continuum, 2004.
v Tella, María José Falcón. The Law in Cervantes and Shakespeare. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
Waldman, Christina G. Francis Bacon’s Hidden Hand in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: A Study of Law, Rhetoric, and Authorship. New York: Algora Publishing, 2018. Bibliography 275-303.
Ward, Ian. Shakespeare and the Legal Imagination. London: Butterworths, 1999.
Watt, Gary. Shakespeare’s Act of Will: Law, Testament, and Properties of Performance. London: Bloomsbury Arden Edition, 2018 [2016].
—-Performance Rhetoric in Shakespeare and Law. Nov. 1, 2018. Semantic Scholar Corpus ID: 216827058.
Wilson, Luke. “Drama and Marine Insurance in Shakespeare’s London.” In The Law in Shakespeare. Edited by Constance Jordan and Karen Cunningham. Houndsmills UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Yoshino, Kenji. A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare’s Plays Teach Us About Justice. New York: Ecco, 2011.
Zurcher, Andrew, ed. Shakespeare and Law. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2010.
—-“Consideration, Contract and The End of The Comedy of Errors,” ch 2. In Shakespeare and the Law. Edited by Paul Raffield and Gary Watt. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2010.
Older (pre-1970)
Andrews,Mark Edwin. Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice: A Legalization of Act IV, Scene 1. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1965. (Reviewed by: John P. Dawson, Shakespeare Quarterly, 1967, p. 89 (unfairly dismissively); Alfred Harbage, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 1966, vol 65, no 4, p. 714 (favorably, but he got some things wrong; e.g., Bacon didn’t decide the case; King James did. Bacon did lead the council which advised the king in the matter. Harbage gave Andrews marks for “not having caught the Baconian virus.”); brief mention in B. J. and Mary Sokol, “Shakespeare and the English Equity Jurisdiction: The Merchant of Venice and the Two Texts of King Lear, The Review of English Studies, New Series, vol 50, no 200 (1999), 417-439, 421-422 (“highly fanciful revamping of the trial scene” and “evident aim of showing off a wide knowledge of legal history”–seems unduly harsh).
Barton, Sir Dunbar Plunket. Links Between Shakespeare and the Law. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1971. Reprinted from London: Faber & Gwyer, 1929. First pub. in 63 Law Journal 470, 493, 511,575, 598 and 64 Law Journal 30, 50, 70, 90 (according to O. Hood Phillips, Shakespeare and the Lawyers, 195). Published in the U.S. as Shakespeare and the Law, foreword by James M. Beck. Clark NJ: The Law Book Exchange, 2011. First published in Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929.
Brune, C. M. Shakespeare’s Use of Legal Terms. London: Straker, 1914.
Clarkson, Paul S. and Clyde T. Warren, The Law of Property in Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Drama. New York: Gordian Press, 1968 [1942].
—-“Copyhold Tenure and Macbeth III, 2, 38.” 55 Modern Language Notes 483 (1940). https://doi.org/10.2307/2910749; JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2910749.
—-“Pleading and Practice in Shakespeare’s Sonnet XLVI.” 62 Modern Language Notes 102 (1947). DOI:10.2307/2909133; JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2909133.
Davis, Cushman Kellogg, The Law in Shakespeare. St. Paul, West Publishing, 1884. First pub. by the Washington Law Book Company, 1883 (Search “The Law in Shakespeare,” The Minnesota Legal History Project. http://www.minnesotalegalhistoryproject.org/index.cfm). Reprinted in 1941.
Greenwood, G. G. [George]. Shakespeare’s Law. Hartford CT: Edwin Valentine Mitchell, 1920 [1908]. HathiTrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t72v2g11f&view=1up&seq=7.
—-Shakespeare’s Law and Latin: How I was ‘Exposed’ by Mr. J. M. Robertson. London: Watts, 1916.HathiTrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b682918&view=1up&seq=7.
Keeton, Shakespeare’s Legal and Political Background. London: Pittman, 1967.
—-Shakespeare and His Legal Problems. London: A & C Black, 1930.
Phelps, Charles E. Falstaff and Equity: An Interpretation. Clark NJ: The Law Book Exchange, 2002 [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1901].
Phillips, O. Hood (1907-1986). Shakespeare and the Lawyers. New York: Routledge, 2013. First published London: Methuen, 1972 (reviewing the literature to 1972. In his preface, Phillips states he eliminated three chapters on authorship due to space (viii), but hoped to write a later book including them. That book never materialized.).
Rushton, William Lowes. Shakespeare a Lawyer. New York: AMS, 1977, reprint of London, 1858 ed. HathiTrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924006415743&view=1up&seq=11.
—-Shakespeare’s Legal Maxims. Liverpool: Clark NJ: The Lawbook Exchange 2008 [Liverpool: Henry Young & Sons, 1907: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044009633454&view=1up&seq=9].
—-Shakespeare’s Testamentary Language. London, 1869. HathiTrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044019338680&view=1up&seq=3.
Shakespeare Cross-Examination: a Compilation of Articles First Appearing in the American Bar Association Journal. Chicago: Cuneo Press, 1961.
Tansell, G. Thomas and Florence W. Dunbar. “Legal Language inCoriolanus.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol 13, no. 2 (Spring 1962), 231-238, JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2866792.
White, Edward J., Commentaries on the Law in Shakespeare, with Explanations of the Legal Terms Used in the Plays … Also a Full Discussion of the Bacon Shakespeare Controversy, 2d edition (with new 41-page introduction, “The Bacon Shakespeare Controversy: History of the Vagary”). St. Louis, MO: The F. H. Thomas Law Book Co., 1913 [1911, with 16-page introduction, “General Observations”].
D. Collected works of Francis Bacon
Spedding, James S. [general editor], Robert Ellis [philosophy editor], and Douglas Denon Heath [legal editor], eds., The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England. 14 volumes. London: Longmans (1857-1874). Online at Hathitrust. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006685889. The Longmans edition of Spedding has long been the standard reference on Francis Bacon’s works.
The Oxford Francis Bacon Project, http://www.oxfordfrancisbacon.com/. Co-directed by Alan Stewart and Richard Sergeantson. Bacon’s “political and legal writings” (1613-1626) are planned for volume 7, to be edited by Chris Kyle. Two of Bacon’s legal writings, the “Maxims of the Law” and “Readings on the Statute of Uses,” are planned for vol 2, to be edited by Alan Stewart. http://www.oxfordfrancisbacon.com/planned-volumes/ofb-vii-political-and-legal-writings/.
Vickers, Brian, ed. Francis Bacon, The Major Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008 [1996]. For Vickers’ list of publications, see https://brianvickers.uk/publications/.
—Francis Bacon, The History of the Reign of King Henry VII and Selected Works. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
E. Libraries and bibliographies; general reference
American Bar Association, search: “Shakespeare.” https://www.americanbar.org/
“Bibliography,” Oxford Francis Bacon website. British Academy. http://www.oxfordfrancisbacon.com/cumulative-bacon-bibliography/.
Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, The. Edited by Bruce R. Smith, in assoc. with Katherine Rowe, with Tom Hoenselaars, Akiko Kusunoki, Andrew Murphy, Aimara da Cunha Resente. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, online 2019. DOI:10.1017/9781316137062.110.
Covington, Sarah. “Francis Bacon.” Oxford Bibliographies (last reviewed May 6, 2021; last modified 10/27/21), https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0138.xml.
Durning-Lawrence Library, Senate House Library, University of London, https://london.ac.uk/senate-house-library/our-collections/special-collections/printed-special-collections/durning-lawrence-library. It is based on the personal collection of Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence (1837-1914), a “Baconian.” It “comprises about 5,000 titles from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century by or in some way perceived as relating to Sir Francis Bacon.”
Folger Shakespeare Library, https://www.folger.edu/.
Francis Bacon Library Archive, Online Archive of California (OAC), https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8cj8g5h/ (“contact Huntington Library Rare Book Collections”).
Library guide, “English 361: Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice,” Peter Turkstra Library, Redeemer University, https://libguides.redeemer.ca/c.php?g=561685&p=5273796.
Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare, The. Edited by Arthur F. Kinney. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
“Shakespeare–A Research and Reference Guide: Criticism,” University at Buffalo University (“UB”) Libraries, last updated Sept. 19, 2022, https://research.lib.buffalo.edu/shakespeare/lit-criticism
“Shakespeare and his Contemporaries,” Books on Shakespeare, Southern Connecticut State University, library guide, last updated Oct. 24, 2022, https://libguides.southernct.edu/c.php?g=7350&p=35361.
“Shakespeare and Rhetoric: Sources,” The Rhetorical Goddess Wiki (Meg Zulick), http://rhetoricalgoddess.wikidot.com/biblio:shakespeare.
“Shakespeare and the Law,” McGill University, https://www.mcgill.ca/search/Shakespeare%20and%20the%20Law.
“Shakespeare Studies,” New York University (“NYU”) Libraries, last updated Oct. 28, 2022, https://guides.nyu.edu/shakespeare-studies/shakespeare-and-law.
“Shakespeare Studies/Authorship Studies,” The University of Winnepeg, “an interdisciplinary guide ….” last updated Oct. 11, 2022, https://libguides.uwinnipeg.ca/c.php?g=124979&p=817288.
Simpson, David. “Francis Bacon.” Philosophy, Oxford Bibliographies, (last reviewed Sept. 19, 2022. Last modified March 10, 2015), DOI:10.1093/OBO/9780195396577-0255.
“William Shakespeare,” Andrew Hadfield, Amy Kenny, Oxford Bibliographies (last reviewed, April 12, 2019; last modified November 27, 2013), DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199846719-0085 (“Stratfordian”).
Wilson, Jeffrey R. “Shakespeare Research Guide.” Harvard University, https://wilson.fas.harvard.edu/writing-with-shakespeare/shakespeare-research-guide.
World Shakespeare Bibliography. Subscriptions available to libraries and institutions. Oxford University Press for the Folger Shakespeare Library, 2022. https://www.worldshakesbib.org/.
F. Teaching/learning law through Shakespeare
Ehrlich, Charles G. “Shakespeare on Expert Witnesses,” American Bar Association website, Oct. 31, 2018, https://www.americanbar.org/. (Search “Shakespeare” at the website).
Friedler, Edith Z. “Essay: Shakespeare’s Contribution to the Teaching of Comparative Law–Some Reflections on The Merchant of Venice.” 60 La. L. Rev. 1087-1102 (2000). Available at https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev/vol60/iss4/6/.
Manderson, Desmond. “In the Tout Court of Shakespeare: Interdisciplinary Pedagogy in Law.” Journal of Legal Education. vol 54, no 2 (June 2004), pp. 283-301, JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/42893854
McKrickard, Keith. “Shakespeare on CR(E)AC: Turning Reluctant First-Year Law Students Into Addicts.” 23 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing 41 (2014). Available from https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/insights/newsletters/perspectives/archive.
last updated April 17, 2024.