humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:12:35 -0800 (PST), Tom Reedy
wrote:

snip
>> The only evidence that the letter was secret was the fact that it
>> wasn't published at the time whereas other accounts were but we can
>> all think of good reasons for this other than the fact of the document
>> being secret. It may have not met with company approval as Mouse
>> suggests. There may have been too many other accounts for a publisher
>> to be interested. Its form as a letter may have been offputting... Any
>> number of good reasons occur. To ASSUME it was a secret document goes
>> against its very literary style - it isn't a dry factual report, as
>> you know. It was written as an entertainment.

I can't pretend to be directly involved in the ongoing skirmishes
attending arguments about re-dating the Tempest. Don't know if Ms
Mouse is birthing a mountain or leading an ascent following old
trails, assuming it's there. So far, TR has been doing a stand-up job
marking her progress, noting pit-falls, dead-ends, and commenting on
methods, IMO. A year ago I think he said he was doing a study of his
own he might report on, so now maybe he's working himself up to his
own scholarly statement. It's been slow going, but then Darwin and
Wallace communicated for many years, sharing insights, before
publishing.