King Edward: He may look like the guy on a deck of cards, but he's actually the star of a Shakespearean play

Newly created “plagiarism-detection software” may have solved an centuries-old mystery over whether William Shakespeare was the author of an unattributed play from the late 1500s called The Reign of Edward III. As a Time Magazine article by Gaelle Faure explains, the software was “created with lazy, sneaky college students in mind.”

But when applied to Edward III, it detected “200 strings of three or more words … that matched phrases in Shakespeare’s other works. Usually, works by two different authors will only have about 20 matching strings.”

That, plus some further consideration from Shakespearean experts, now seem to have shown that the play was indeed a collaboration between the Bard and another popular playwright of the era, William Kyd.

According to the Time report, “Among Shakespeare’s recycled bits of phrases: ‘come in person hither,’ ‘pale queene of night,’ ‘thou art thy selfe,’ ‘author of my blood’ and even the whole phrase ‘lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.’”