believed in a highly structured, dutiful and ordered society. For Looney the plays expressed a distinct political vision that combined elements of feudalism and modern scepticism towards traditional religion. He also believed that events and characters in the plays must correspond to the life of the author. Studying the biographies of Elizabethan aristocrats, he became convinced that Edward de Vere's career and personal experience could be mapped onto the action of the plays. Since de Vere died in 1604, many years before a number of Shakespeare's works appeared, Looney argued that there is an abrupt change in publication history and in the style of plays apparently written after 1604. Unusually, Looney argued that The Tempest was not the work of Oxford/Shakespeare, but of another author. It had been mistakenly added to the canon. He argued that its style and the "dreary negativism" it promoted were inconsistent with Shakespeare's "essentially positivist" soul, and so could not have been written by Oxford. He also suggested that the evidence of other writers' hands in late plays such as Pericles, Prince of Tyre implied that the author had died, leaving them unfinished. Such works were completed and published by others, as were the sonnets, the dedication page of which implied to Looney that the author was deceased. Looney expanded his views in later publications, especially his 1921 edition of de Vere's poetry. Looney suggested that de Vere was also responsible for some of the literary works published under the names of Arthur Golding, Anthony Munday and John Lyly. Reception and assessments Looney's book started a whole new avenue of speculation and has many followers today. In general, alternative authorship theories are dismissed by all but a few English professors and Shakespeare scholars, who accept the historical attribution to Shakespeare of Stratford. Early reviewers were less than kind. The reviewer for The Outlook dismissed the book after reading but a few chapters, writing that it appeared "to have all the paraphernalia of scholarship but little of its critical spirit" with "sweeping suppositions" based on little evidence. In The Times Literary Supplement review, A. W. Pollard praised the author for his honesty in admitting to his ignorance of Early Modern poetry and drama, to which he attributes Looney's methods and conclusions. He calls the book "a sad waste of print and paper" and writes that Looney's arguments for Oxford are much more strained and incredulous than