KATHERINE CHILJAN is an independent scholar who has studied the Shakespeare authorship question for over 30 years. She has debated the topic with English professors at the Smithsonian Institution and at the Mechanics’ Institute Library in San Francisco. She has written several articles for Shakespeare-Oxford Newsletter, and served as its editor for two years. She is currently on the Research Grant committee for the Shakespeare-Oxford Fellowship, and a board member of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition.
Chiljan has given talks on the Shakespeare Authorship Question in numerous public libraries, clubs, universities, and bookstores throughout California. She is a frequent guest on radio shows and podcasts; she appeared on “Coast to Coast-AM” in 2018.
Chiljan, a graduate of U.C.L.A. in history, became interested in the authorship question after watching a TV debate between Charlton Ogburn and a Shakespeare professor on “Firing Line” in late 1984. Ogburn’s case for the 17th Earl of Oxford as the real Shakespeare was overwhelming. She then read Ogburn’s now classic work, The Mysterious William Shakespeare, and was inspired to do her own research. In April 2012, Chiljan received an award for distinguished scholarship at Concordia University, Portland OR, for Shakespeare Suppressed. She was also a contributor to Contested Year (2016). Chiljan has published two anthologies: Dedication Letters to the Earl of Oxford, and Letters and Poems of Edward, Earl of Oxford (1998).
Articles in the Shakespeare-Oxford Newsletter:
“Richard Brome’s The Antipodes and the English Earl,” Spring 1994
“The Wardship of Henry Bullock,” Fall 1998
“Oxford and the 1566 Play, Palamon and Arcite,” Spring 1999
“Dating the Ashbourne Portrait,” Winter 2003
“The CCI Report on the Ashbourne Portrait,” Winter 2003
“The Earl of Oxford’s Annuity to Robert Hales,” Fall 2005
“Complaints About A Lover’s Complaint,” Winter 2008
“A Vere of ‘great Vertue’ Wrote the Shakespeare Plays,” Summer 2021
“Is This a Portrait of Oxford?” Winter 2022
Other articles:
“Reclaiming The Passionate Pilgrim for Shakespeare,” The Oxfordian, Vol. 14, 2012
“The Importance of Love’s Martyr in the Shakespeare Authorship Question,” Brief Chronicles, Vol. 4, Spring 2013
“Why was Edward de Vere Defamed on Stage – and his Death Unnoticed?” The Oxfordian, Vol. 21, October 2019
“Is Lord Prospero Visconti of Milan the Model for Lord Prospero of The Tempest? The Oxfordian, Vol. 23, 2021