Wilbur Gleason Zeigler

Wilbur Gleason Zeigler (1857–1923) was a lawyer and writer who is best known for founding the Marlovian theory of Shakespeare authorship in the preface and notes to his 1895 novel It Was Marlowe. He also wrote on the history of Ohio, the culture of North Carolina, and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, of which he was a survivor.

Early career

Zeigler was born near Fremont, Ohio in 1857. His father, Henry Zeigler, was of German ancestry. His mother, Elizabeth Gorham (née Gleason), was a descendant of Thomas Fitch. Zeigler studied law in Cleveland, Ohio, and in 1881 was admitted to the bar. He joined in a partnership with R. P. Buckland and H. S. Buckland, but after a year left to develop an interest in literature.

Zeigler contributed historical material to the History of Sandusky County Ohio (1882). He also travelled through North Carolina with fellow lawyer Ben S. Grosscup to research their jointly written book The Heart of the Alleghanies; or, Western North Carolina. It was published in 1883.

In 1883, Zeigler settled in San Francisco, and returned to legal work, concentrating on civil law. Eventually he formed the partnership Galpin & Zeigler.

Marlovian theory

Zeigler returned to literature with his novel It was Marlowe: a Story of the Secret of Three Centuries, (1895). In the preface to the book Zeigler commented on the then-popular Baconian theory that Francis Bacon was the true author Shakespeare's works. He argued that the two authors were very different, and put forward his alternative suggestion that Christopher Marlowe, who is recorded to have been killed in a fight in 1593, faked his death. He pointed out that accounts of the death were very inconsistent and that no evidence had ever been found concerning his mysterious killer. He noted similarities between Marlowe's and Shakespeare's styles and the fact that the latter's career began almost simultaneously with the end of Marlowe's in 1593. Zeigler dealt with the anticipated objection that, unlike Shakespeare, there is little humour in Marlowe's work, by referring to the comic scenes in Doctor Faustus. He also noted that Shakespeare's own name first appears on plays in 1598 with the publication of Love's Labour's Lost and that John Aubrey later wrote that Ben Jonson "killed Mr. Marlow, ye poet, on Bunhill, coming from the Green Curtain play house" in the same year. Zeigler suggests that the two events are linked and that Marlowe survived until 1598 when Jonson may have killed him. In the novel, Zeigler creates a fictional narrative about how the deception may have occurred and why there appear to be two reported dates for Marlowe's death. He also puts arguments about similarities between Marlowe's work and Shakespeare's into the mouths of Ben Jonson and Thomas Nashe. In footnotes and an appendix Zeigler expands on connections between Marlowe's and Shakespeare's work and suggests that Jonson was behind the 1623 First Folio, in which he thinks he had a financial interest.