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John Leslie Hotson, (16 August 1897 – 16 November 1992) was a scholar of Elizabethan literary puzzles.


Biography

He was born at
Delhi, Ontario Delhi (; ) refers to both a former township and unincorporated community located off of the junction of Ontario Highways 59 and 3. Delhi is known as the "Heart of Tobacco Country." Prior to 1880, this community was known for its lumber indus ...
, on 16 August 1897. He studied at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, where he obtained a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. He went on to hold a number of academic posts. Hotson was known for his tenacious archival research and his interest in coded information. He had a number of notable successes, but not all of his "decodings" have been accepted by other scholars. He discovered the identity of
Ingram Frizer Ingram Frizer ( ; died August 1627) was an English gentleman and businessman of the late 16th and early 17th centuries who is notable for his reported killing "According to the official story – the story told by Skeres and Poley – it was Marlo ...
, the killer of
Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (; baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon the ...
, and reconstructed the shape of the original Shakespearean theater. He also unearthed the letters that
Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...
wrote to his divorced wife Harriet; produced evidence of Shakespeare's father as a wool dealer; illuminated Shakespeare's early years in Stratford-upon-Avon; and identified John Day as the killer of Henry Porter, a minor Elizabethan dramatist. Some of his solutions to literary puzzles are still in dispute. He claimed to have identified one
Nicholas Colfox Sir Nicholas Colfox (flourished 1400) was a medieval English knight who in 1397 was involved in the murder of Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester, uncle of King Richard II, apparently on the orders of the king. Colfox's involvement in the k ...
as the murderer of
Thomas of Woodstock Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (7 January 13558 or 9 September 1397) was the fifth surviving son and youngest child of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. Early life Thomas was born on 7 January 1355 at Woodstock ...
by "decoding" Chaucer's ''
The Nun's Priest's Tale "The Nun's Priest's Tale" (Middle English: ''The Nonnes Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen, Chauntecleer and Pertelote'') is one of ''The Canterbury Tales'' by the Middle English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Composed in the 1390s, it is a beast fable ...
''. He also claimed to have identified Mr W H, the person to whom Shakespeare's sonnets were dedicated, as a William Hatcliffe of Lincolnshire. He later argued that a miniature colour portrait by
Nicholas Hilliard Nicholas Hilliard () was an English goldsmith and limner best known for his portrait miniatures of members of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I of England. He mostly painted small oval miniatures, but also some larger cabinet miniatures, ...
depicted
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
as a young man. As the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' stated in his obituary: "it was chiefly as a Shakespearian detective that Dr Hotson remained in the public eye, sometimes to the annoyance of rival scholars who discounted his theories." His first major work, ''The Death of Christopher Marlowe'' — which made his name — is still in print. He stumbled across the evidence while decoding Chaucer's ''Nun's Priest's Tale'' in the archives of the English Public Records Office in 1923–24.Several different names had been mentioned in connection with Marlowe's death, two of which were "one Ingram" and "ffrancis ffrezer". Hotson stumbled on the name "Ingram Frizer" and "felt at once that I had come upon the man who killed Christopher Marlowe." (p. 23). He died on 16 November 1992 in
North Branford, Connecticut North Branford is a New England town, town in New Haven County, Connecticut, New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 13,544 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. The town is primarily known for agriculture and for ...
.


Life summary

* Pacifist - served with Friends (Quaker) Relief Unit in France, 1918–1919 * Educated at Harvard (BA, MA, PhD) and Yale * Married 1919, Mary May Peabody * Fulbright Exchange Scholar at
Bedford College, London file:Bedford College in York place - photographer is unknown but guess 1908.png, Bedford College was in York Place after 1874 Bedford College was founded in London in 1849 as the first higher education college for education of women, women in th ...
* Taught at Harvard, Yale (Research Associate) and New York University * Guggenheim Fellow 1929 and 1930 in 16th and 17th Century English Literature * Taught at Haverford College (1931–42) * Second War – Officer in Signal Corps * Fellow of King's College, Cambridge (England), 1954–60 * He is the author of many books of
literary biography When studying literature, biography and its relationship to literature is often a subject of literary criticism, and is treated in several different forms. Two scholarly approaches use biography or biographical approaches to the past as a tool for i ...
, criticism and detection, such as: ** ''Colfox vs Chauntecleer'' 1924 PMLA XXXIX ** ''The Death of Christopher Marlowe'' 1925 ** ''The Commonwealth and Restoration'' Stage 1929 ** ''Shakespeare versus Shallow'' 1931 ** ''The Adventure of a Single Rapier'' 1931 ** ''I, William Shakespeare'' ** ''Shakespeare's Sonnets Dated'' ** ''Shakespeare's Motley'' ** ''The First Night of Twelfth Night'', 1954 ** ''Shakespeare's Wooden O'', 1959 ** ''Mr WH'', 1964 ** ''Shakespeare by Hilliard'', 1977


Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hotson, John Leslie 1897 births 1992 deaths Harvard University alumni Shakespearean scholars Canadian literary critics Yale University faculty Harvard University faculty New York University faculty People from Norfolk County, Ontario Historians of theatre Alumni of Bedford College, London Canadian emigrants to the United States