Literary detectives have uncovered many facts about William Shakespeare. Still, the most important questions of all remain:Did he really write the Shakespeare plays?Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Southampton (Shakespeare's patron),and even Queen Elizabeth herself have at times been suspected of writing them. The sheer volume of Shakespeare's work-37 plays,154 sonnets, 2 other poems, and an elegy-has led to suggestions that "William Shakespeare" was actually several people, not one.