The Online Books Page

Spurious and doubtful works

Use as a topical subdivision under names of individual persons for works that discuss works attributed to a person at a previous time.

See also what's at your library, or elsewhere.

• Authorship

• Aristotle -- Spurious and doubtful works
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Spurious and doubtful works

• Doubtful works

• De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus (Oxford, UK: At the Clarendon Press, 1909), ed. by Launcelot D. Dowdall
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only

• The Passionate Pilgrim (from the second edition; London: Printed for W. Iaggard, 1599), contrib. by William Shakespeare (HTML at uvic.ca)
• Double Falsehood (sources attributed here variously to Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Shirley; Western Reserve University Bulletin, new series, v. 23 no. 3, 1920), by Mr. Theobald, ed. by Walter James Graham, contrib. by William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and James Shirley
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Double Falshood: or, the Distrest Lovers (supposedly based on a lost play by Shakespeare and Fletcher; this edition based on the second edition of 1728, with notes on variants), by Mr. Theobald, ed. by John W. Kennedy, contrib. by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher (HTML with commentary at skensoftware.com)
• The London Prodigal (Gutenberg text)
• The Passionate Pilgrim (attributed to Shakespeare and various other authors), contrib. by William Shakespeare (Gutenberg text)
• The Passionate Pilgrim: Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of the First Edition, 1599, From the Copy in the Christie Miller Library of Britwell (Oxford, UK: At the Clarendon Press, 1905), ed. by Sidney Lee, contrib. by William Shakespeare
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Pseudo-Shakespearian Plays (5 volumes; Halle: M. Miemeyer, 1883-1888), ed. by Karl Warnke and Ludwig Proescholdt, contrib. by William Shakespeare
  • all volumes: page images at HathiTrust
  • Volumes I-IV (Faire Em; The Merry Devil of Edmonton; King Edward III; The Birth of Merlin): multiple formats at archive.org
  • Volume V (Arden of Feversham): multiple formats at archive.org
• The Puritaine Widow (Gutenberg text)
• The Shakespeare Apocrypha: Being a Collection of Fourteen Plays Which Have Been Ascribed to Shakespeare (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1908), ed. by Tucker Brooke, contrib. by William Shakespeare (multiple formats at archive.org)
• A Supplement to the Plays of William Shakespeare: Comprising the Seven Dramas, Which Have Been Ascribed to His Pen, But Which are Not Included With His Writings in Modern Editions (first American edition; New York: G.F. Cooledge and Brother, 1848), ed. by William Gilmore Simms, contrib. by William Shakespeare, illust. by Alexander Anderson
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Lilies That Fester, and Love's Constancy (adaptation of Arden of Faversham, and adapted extract from Edward the Third; New York: Brentano's, c1906), by William Poel
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Sir John Oldcastle (parts attributed to Shakespeare) (Gutenberg text)

• The Shakespeare Apocrypha: Being a Collection of Fourteen Plays Which Have Been Ascribed to Shakespeare (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1908), ed. by Tucker Brooke, contrib. by William Shakespeare (multiple formats at archive.org)

Items below (if any) are from related and broader terms.

• Bad Ideas About Writing (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Libraries Digital Publishing Institute, c2017), ed. by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe (PDF with commentary at wvu.edu)
• Research, Writing, and Creative Process in Open and Distance Education: Tales From the Field (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, c2023), ed. by Dianne Conrad (multiple formats with commentary at Open Book Publishers)
• Whose Book is it Anyway? A View From Elsewhere on Publishing, Copyright and Creativity (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, c2019), ed. by Janis Jefferies and Sarah Kember (multiple formats with commentary at Open Book Publishers)
• Signature Pieces: On the Institution of Authorship (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, c1988), by Peggy Kamuf (PDF and EPub with commentary at Cornell Open)
• The Work of Authorship (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014), ed. by Mireille M. M. van Eechoud (PDF with commentary at oapen.org)
• A Vindication of the Press (1718) (Augustan Reprint Society publication #29; Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, 1951), by Daniel Defoe, contrib. by Clinton Williams (Gutenberg text)
• The Psychology of Writing Success (New York: The Business bourse, 1933), ed. by J. George Frederick, contrib. by A. A. Brill, Thyra Samter Winslow, Mary Austin, Floyd Dell, and Thomas H. Uzzell (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Act of Writing: A Media Theory Approach, by Daniel Chandler (Word with commentary in the UK)
• Anonymity: An Enquiry (Hogarth Essays #12; London: L. and V. Woolf, 1925), by E. M. Forster
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only
• The Art of Short Story Writing (Cincinnati: Publishers Syndicate, 1910), by George Randolph Chester
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• The Art of Story Writing: Facts and Information About Literary Work of Practical Value of Both Amateur and Professional Writers (New York: Sully and Kleinteich, 1913), by Nathaniel C. Fowler (multiple formats at archive.org)
• The Author's Craft, by Arnold Bennett (Gutenberg text)
• The Author's Year Book and Guide for 1904: Including Some 600 Names and Addresses of Publishers and Publications to Whom Manuscripts May be Sold (1904), ed. by W. E. Price (page images at HathiTrust)
• Beyond Life: Dizain des Demiurges (New York: R. M. McBride and Co., 1919), by James Branch Cabell (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Craftsmanship of Writing (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1920), by Frederic Taber Cooper (multiple formats at archive.org)
• The Fiction Factory: Being the Experience of a Writer Who, for Twenty-Two Years, Has Kept a Story-Mill Grinding Successfully (published under "John Milton Edwards" pen name; Ridgewood, NJ: The Editor Company, c1912), by William Wallace Cook
  • Gutenberg text
  • page images at Google; US access only
• If You Don't Write Fiction (New York: R. M. McBride Co., 1920), by Charles Phelps Cushing (Gutenberg text and page images)
• Intentions (London: Methuen and Co., 1913), by Oscar Wilde (Gutenberg text)
• Intentions: The Decay of Lying; Pen, Pencil and Poison; The Critic as Artist; The Truth of Masks (New York: Brentano's, 1905), by Oscar Wilde, contrib. by Percival Pollard
  • page images at HathiTrust
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• Side Lights (London: T. F. Unwin, 1893), by James Runciman, ed. by John F. Runciman, contrib. by Grant Allen and W. T. Stead (Gutenberg text)
• The Writer's Book: A Compendium of Information Upon Matters Pertaining to the Trade of Authorship (Franklin, OH: J. K. Reeve, c1922), by James Knapp Reeve (page images at HathiTrust)
• How to Write and Sell a Novel (revised from Why Write a Novel?; New York: Woodford Press, 1948), by Jack Woodford (page images at HathiTrust)
• Trials of Authorship: Anterior Forms and Poetic Reconstruction from Wyatt to Shakespeare (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), by Jonathan V. Crewe (HTML at UC Press)
• The Art of Inventing Characters (Franklin, OH: J. K. Reeve, 1922), by Georges Polti, trans. by Lucille Ray (page images at HathiTrust)
• Books Fatal to Their Authors, by P. H. Ditchfield (Gutenberg text)
• Conjectures on Original Composition, by Edward Young (HTML at Toronto)
• Essays in the Art of Writing, by Robert Louis Stevenson (Gutenberg text)
• My First Book (London: Chatto and Windus, 1894), contrib. by Walter Besant, William Clark Russell, Grant Allen, Hall Caine, George R. Sims, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, M. E. Braddon, F. W. Robinson, H. Rider Haggard, R. M. Ballantyne, Israel Zangwill, Morley Roberts, David Christie Murray, Marie Corelli, Jerome K. Jerome, John Strange Winter, Bret Harte, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Robert Williams Buchanan, and Robert Louis Stevenson (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)
• My Maiden Effort: Being the Personal Confessions of Well-Known American Authors as to Their Literary Beginnings (Garden City, NY and Toronto: Pub. for the Authors' League of America by Doubleday, Page and Co., 1921), ed. by Gelett Burgess (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• The Principles of Success in Literature, by George Henry Lewes (Gutenberg text)
• The Principles of Success in Literature (London et al.: W. Scott Pub. Co., ca. 1898), by George Henry Lewes, ed. by T. Sharper Knowlson
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• The Stories Editors Buy and Why (Boston: Small, Maynard and Co., c1921), ed. by Jean Wick (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Crip Authorship: Disability as Method, ed. by Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez (multiple formats with commentary at NYU Press)

• (First Person)²: A Study of Co-Authoring in the Academy (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, c2001), by Kami Day and Michele Eodice
  • PDF with commentary at usu.edu
  • page images at HathiTrust

• Six Characters in Search of an Author, by Luigi Pirandello, trans. by Edward Storer
  • HTML at ibiblio.org
  • Librivox audio performance

• New Grub Street, by George Gissing
  • HTML at victorian-studies.net
  • Gutenberg text
• The Celebrity, by Winston Churchill (Gutenberg text)
• Dom Casmurro (in Portuguese; Rio de Janeiro and Paris: H. Garnier, 1899), by Machado de Assis (Gutenberg text)
• The Country of the Pointed Firs (21-chapter version), by Sarah Orne Jewett (Gutenberg text)
• The Country of the Pointed Firs (24-chapter version, 1910), by Sarah Orne Jewett (HTML at Bartleby)

More items available under broader and related terms at left.