William Shakespeare may indeed have been the original author of the play Double Falsehood after all . A play discovered nearly 300 years ago and said to be a Shakespeare forgery was really written by the Bard himself , new research has revealed . The work titled Double Falsehood was presented by theatre impresario Lewis Theobald in the 18th century as an adaptation of a Shakespeare play about a Spanish nobleman 's ignoble pursuit of two women . Theobald , a known scholar of Shakespeare , mounted his play at Drury Lane Theatre in London on December 13 , 1727 , claiming that it was a re-working of an original by the Bard and that he had three original texts . His claims were greeted with widespread scepticism in the eighteenth century , including from the great poet Alexander Pope , who had considerable clout . But a new study of its language to build up a psychological profile of the writer 'strongly identifies ' the legendary playwright as the true author . Dr Ryan Boyd of the University of Texas said : 'Research in psychology has shown some of the core features of who a person is at their deepest level can be revealed based on how they use language . 'With our new study , we show you can actually take a lot of this information and put it all together at once to understand an author like Shakespeare rather deeply . ' The study applied psychological theory and text analysing software and goes beyond confirming authorship by word counts and linguistic regularities . Mr Boyd explained : 'This research shows it is indeed possible to start modelling peoples ' mental worlds in much more complete ways . 'We do not need a time machine and a survey form to figure out what type of person Shakespeare was - we can determine that very accurately just based on how he wrote using methods that are objective and easy to do . ' Results showed the author of Double Falsehood was likely to be sociable and fairly well educated , findings that do not fit with accounts of Theobald as rigid and abrasive . Theobald published Double Falsehood in 1728 and claimed it was based on three original Shakespeare manuscripts which have since been lost , presumably destroyed by a library fire . Yet the authorship of the play has been hotly contested ever since . To get to the bottom of the mystery 33 plays by the Bard , twelve by Theobald and nine by Shakespeare 's collaborator John Fletcher , were examined in the study published in Psychological Science . Jacobean dramatist John Fletcher ( left ) most likely collaborated with Shakespeare on Double Falsehood ( right ) , which was long thought not to have had anything to do with the Bard . Software evaluated 'function words ' including pronouns , articles and prepositions and words belonging to various content categories such as emotions , family , sensory perception and religion . They also looked at 'categorical writing ' which tends to be heavy on nouns , articles and prepositions and indicates an analytic or formal way of thinking . People who rate high on this are likely to be emotionally distant , applying problem solving approaches to everyday situations while those who rate low tend to live in the moment and are more focused on social matters . By aggregating dozens of psychological features of each playwright , the researchers were able to create a psychological signature for each individual and compare them with that of the writer of Double Falsehood . Every measure but one identified Shakespeare as the likely author with Theobald identified as the best match only when it came to his use of content words . But when the texts were analysed across individual acts , they found a more nuanced picture . The first three continued to point the finger at Shakespeare , but for the fourth and fifth the measures varied between him and Fletcher . Again , Theobald 's influence appeared to be very minor . Boyd said : 'Honestly , I was surprised to see such a strong signal for Shakespeare showing through in the results . 'Going into the research without any real background knowledge , I had just kind of assumed it was going to be a pretty cut and dry case of a fake Shakespeare play , which would have been really interesting in and of itself . ' Tangled relationships , women disguised as men , intrigue laced with tragedy and comedy - some might say Double Falsehood has all the hallmarks of Shakespeare . Set in the province of Andalusia in Spain , a love rat called Henriquez Angelo courts a beautiful peasant girl , Violante , and forces himself upon her when she rejects his advances . Stricken by a guilty conscience he nevertheless seduces Leonora , the future wife of his absent best friend Julio . She accepts Henriquez 's marriage proposal against her will , because her father Don Bernardo wants a family connection with nobility . Leonora writes a letter to Julio who returns to interrupt the wedding , causing her to faint . Her father discovers a dagger and suicide note on her person , revealing her determination not to be forced into marriage . But for the best part of three centuries the play was dismissed as a falsehood in more than just title . That was until 2010 when Professor Brean Hammond , of the University of Nottingham , put forward his thesis that the play originates from a collaboration between Shakespeare and Jacobean dramatist John Fletcher . He claimed the versification was very similar to other works by Shakespeare and that Double Falsehood contained words never seen before and not previously used by Theobald . Dr Boyd 's new study is the latest to support this revisionist view .
Double Falsehood was presented by Lewis Theobald in the 18th century . Spain impresario made it out to be an adaptation of a play by the Bard . Claims met with scepticism , including from great poet Alexander Pope . But new study of its language identifies playwright as the true author . Psychological theory and text analysing software lead to conclusion of University of Texas study which claims to model Bard 's 'mental world '