SOURCE: Jackson, MacD. P. “Other Doubtful Middleton Ascriptions.” In Studies in Attribution: Middleton and Shakespeare, pp. 138-47. Salzburg: Institute für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 1979.

In the following essay, Jackson argues that while Rowley was certainly one of the authors of The Birth of Merlin, neither Thomas Middleton nor William Shakespeare collaborated on the work, as some have claimed.

The Birth of Merlin was first published by Francis Kirkman in 1662 with a title page claiming that it had been written by William Shakespeare and William Rowley, an attribution which Kirkman had already made in his catalogue of 1661 and repeated in his catalogue of 1671.¹ There has been general rejection of his claim for Shakespeare and acceptance of his claim for Rowley. Daniel and Fleay in the nineteenth century suggested that Rowley's real partner in The Birth of Merlin was Middleton, and Tucker Brooke, in editing the play...