Why Marlowe?

I got an email from a member of the International Marlowe Shakespeare Society of London.

The writer had some serious reservations about Marlowe having written the works of the Bard of Stratford on Avon.

"Why not Edward De Verre, the 17 Earl of Oxford or even Francis Bacon?" she asked.  As a member of the society, she, of course, wanted to believe that the real author was Marlowe.  But many other names get tossed into the arguments a lot.

Well, I referred her to the premise on the back of the book:

For centuries, two questions have plagued historians:

--How could Christopher Marlowe, a known spy and England's foremost playwright, be suspiciously murdered and secretly buried in unmarked grave - just days before he was to be tried for treason and sentenced to death?

--How could William Shakespeare replace Marlowe as England's greatest playwright virtually overnight - when Shakespeare had never written anything before and was merely an unknown actor? Historians have noted that he was better known at that time "for holding horses for the gentry while they watched plays." 

Actually, the easier argument is that Shakespeare, the actor did not write the plays.  The harder argument is to try to prove who actually did write them.

I feel that the final third of my book The Shakespeare Conspiracy pretty much proves that it was Marlowe.  That supplement to the book explains that though it is a novel, all the known facts in the book (except one) are accurate.  That one deviation is clearly spelled out in the supplement and I explain why it was done.

But why Marlowe?   For starters there are about a hundred duplicate lines in the works of Shakespeare and Marlowe.   This is not true of Shakespeare and other authors of the time.  Why would England's most famous playwright borrow (steal?) from a dead poet.  In one case (Merry Wives of Windsor) Shakespeare boldly uses eight consecutive lines from Marlowe's poem ("The Passionate Shepherd to his Love") without any reference to the fact that it was from another work.  It's just part of the play dialogue.

The supplement has many other things that I consider to be proofs.

I told her to read the book.   She'll see.