About Us

& Biographies

We are a group of Oxfordians who live in the Boston area who enjoy meeting to discuss the works of Shakespeare and Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford.  Our goal is to create a forum to bring informative and relevant presentations about Shakespeare and the Shakespeare authorship question to the public for discussion.  We are very fortunate to have two Oxfordians with us this year who have not presented in the Boston area for some time.  They will be joined by five of our outstanding local Oxfordians for this weekend event.  Following are biographies of our presenters:

Charles Beauclerk, a first class honors graduate of Oxford University, lectures and writes on 16th and 17th century history.  He founded the De Vere Society in 1986 to foster debate and research on the Shakespeare authorship question, and was president of the American-based Shakespeare Oxford Society from 1995-97.  He has spoken before some 250 audiences in the US and Canada, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Folger Shakespeare Library.  His first book, Nell Gwyn: A Biography, was published by Macmillan in 2005.  Shakespeare’s Lost Kingdom: The True History of Shakespeare and Elizabeth, his latest book, was published by Grove Atlantic in April.  For more information about Beauclerk, please see:  www.whowroteshakespeare.com/

Charles Berney  Chuck has a long history of involvement with community and professional theater, dating back to his days in the army, when he acted with Philip Baker Hall.  From 1980 to 2000 he was artistic director of the Royal Victorian Opera Company, a group devoted to performing little-known works of the playwright William Gilbert (best known today for his collaborations with composer Arthur Sullivan).  The Royal Vic productions have attracted world-wide attention, as they fill a significant gap in our appreciation of victorian theater.  Chuck has contributed a number of articles to Oxfordian publications, proving (among other things) that a) the earl of Leicester was a serial killer, b) Essex was Leicester’s natural born son, and c) Oxford wrote The Spanish Tragedy, commonly attributed to Thomas Kyd.

Frank Davis did his undergraduate university work at Emory University and took his M.D. from Tulane University in 1960, joining the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. In 1968, he completed training in neurological surgery at New Orleans in the Tulane University program. Frank spent his entire medical career in the private practice of neurosurgery in Tallahassee, FL. Retiring in 1993, he became an active Oxfordian in 1994, after having become friends with Charlton Ogburn, Jr. Dr. Davis is past president of the Shakespeare Oxford Society and remains on the Board of Trustees. Previous Oxfordian papers and presentations include “Shakespeare’s Knowledge of Medicine,” “Revisiting the Early Dating of Twelfth Night,” “Warbling Sting, Melody Not Malady,” and “The Poem, ‘Grief of Minde’: Who Wrote It and Why Is it Important?” and “Henslowe’s Diary and Its Significance to Oxfordians”.

Alex McNeil received his B.A. from Yale University and his J.D. from Boston College Law School. A non-practicing attorney, he is the Court Administrator of the Massachusetts Appeals Court in Boston. Alex became interested in the Shakespeare Authorship question after seeing the 1989 PBS Frontline program on the subject. He was one of the founding trustees of The Shakespeare Fellowship, and served three terms as president. He is the author of Total Television, a reference book on TV programming, and can be heard on the radio as the Friday host of "Lost and Found" on WMBR-FM (88.1, Cambridge MA), a program spotlighting lesser-known pop and soul music of the 60s and 70s.  Check out a profile of Alex McNeil in The Boston Globe, May 16, 2007.  Also see a related Boston Globe Chat with Alex.

Marie Merkel’s essay, “Ben Jonson & The Tempest,” based on her talk last year at the first Shakespeare Symposium in Watertown, appeared in the Shakespeare Oxford Society newsletter last September.  Her poems have appeared in The Carolina Quarterly and The New Republic.  She is the author of The First Mousetrap: Titus Andronicus and the Tudor Massacre of the Howards, a full-length study of the play’s links with Howard family history, and the dramatic methods used to conceal this politically explosive story. 

Sarah Smith’s bestselling novels have appeared in 12 languages.  She is author of the novel Chasing Shakespeares, about the Shakespeare authorship.  Chasing Shakespeares is in its third printing in paperback and has been made into a play.

Richard F. Whalen is the author of Shakespeare, Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon, published in 1994 by Greenwood-Praeger and still in print. With Dan Wright of Concordia University, he is co-general editor of the first Oxfordian editions of Shakespeare plays and is the editor of Macbeth in the series.  He and Ren Draya of Blackburn university are co-editors of Othello.  Whalen is a past president of the Shakespeare Oxford Society.  His articles have appeared in “Harper’s Magazine” and “The Tennessee Law Review,” and he is a regular contributor of research articles and book reviews to Oxfordian publications.