Dolly Walker-Wraight

Annie Doris "Dolly" Walker-Wraight (1920 – March 2002) was a British school teacher and writer. Under the name A.D. Wraight, she published in support of the Marlovian theory, the argument that Christopher Marlowe was the true author of William Shakespeare's works.

Life

She earned the Froebel Teachers Diploma in 1958 and worked as a teacher at Dulwich College Preparatory School (1961–1967; 1975–1983) and at the William Tyndale Junior School in Islington, London, (1969–1974). She played a significant role at the start of the educational scandal at the William Tyndale, which culminated in a formal public enquiry in 1975.

Personal life and death She married journalist and art critic Robert Wraight in 1940; they divorced in 1963. They had a son, Colin Wraight, who became a biochemist and plant biologist, and a daughter, Virginia . She died in March 2002.

Publications on Marlowe and Shakespeare Her interest in Marlowe began in 1955 when the American writer Calvin Hoffman, who popularized the Marlovian theory, published his book The Man Who Was Shakespeare. She joined the newly formed Marlowe Society and began a drama branch to revive the rarely performed plays of Marlowe and his contemporaries. She served variously as the Society's secretary, editor of its newsletter, Vice-Chair and Chair. She wrote the society's pamphlet seeking to rehabilitate Marlowe's reputation, "The Real Christopher Marlowe".

In 1965, as A. D. Wraight, she published an illustrated biography, In Search of Christopher Marlowe (in collaboration with the American photographer Virginia Stern). In 1993, in Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyne, she argued that Marlowe wrote Edward III, generally credited in part to Shakespeare.

Her research into the Marlovian theory centred on an interpretation of Shakespeare's sonnets, which was the focus of her 1994 book The Story that the Sonnets Tell. Building on Archie Webster's approach,

In 1996 she published Shakespeare: New Evidence, which presents archival discoveries she made with Peter Farey about a spy called Le Doux, who she suggested might be Marlowe.

Publications (with Virginia F. Stern). In Search of Christopher Marlowe: A Pictorial Biography, London: Mcdonald, 1965, "The Real Christopher Marlowe", an open letter to Charles Nicholl. 2nd ed. Chichester, for the Marlowe Society, 1992, Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn, Chichester: Hart, 1993, The Story that the Sonnets Tell, London: Hart, 1994, Shakespeare: New Evidence, London: Hart, 1996,