| Brief Chronicles: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Authorship Studies | |
|---|---|
| Discipline | Interdisciplinary Studies |
| Language | English |
| Edited by | Roger Stritmatter |
| Publication details | |
| Publisher | The Shakespeare Fellowship |
| Publication history | 2009–present |
| Frequency | Annual |
| Open access | Yes |
| Indexing | |
| ISSN | 2157-6785 |
| LCCN | 2010200481 |
| OCLC number | 666396835 |
| Links | |
Brief Chronicles is an interdisciplinary academic journal dedicated to examining the Shakespeare authorship question and more generally topics in early modern authorship studies.[1] It was established in 2009 and is included in the MLA International Bibliography and World Shakespeare Bibliography databases.[2] The editor-in-chief is Roger Stritmatter. The journal is sponsored by the Shakespeare Fellowship, an organization devoted to promoting Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as the true author of the works of William Shakespeare.
The journal's name refers to a quotation from Hamlet in which Hamlet warns Polonius that the players are "the abstract and brief chronicles of the/time: after your death you were better have a bad/epitaph than their ill report while you live" (2.2.534-36). The journal's mission statement quotes former Folger Shakespeare Library educational director Richmond Crinkley in a 1985 Shakespeare Quarterly review of Charlton Ogburn Jr.’s The Mysterious William Shakespeare: "Doubts about Shakespeare came early and grew rapidly. They have a simple and direct plausibility. The plausibility has been reinforced by the tone and methods by which traditional scholarship has responded to the doubts."[3] According to its mission statement, "Brief Chronicles solicits articles that answer Crinkley’s 1985 call for scholarship which transcends the increasingly irrelevant traditional division between 'amateur' knowledge and 'expert' authority [in Shakespearean studies]."[4]