He studied at the Westcliff High School for Boys, where he performed well and earned a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge at the age of sixteen.
He published over a hundred papers on the subject and wrote two books, The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Early Years, 1564–1594 (New Haven & London 1995) and The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Later Years, 1594–1616 (unfinished at the time of Sams' death, an edited text being published as an e-book by the Centro Studi "Eric Sams", 2008) [1].
[3] As many of the Quarto title-pages proclaim, Shakespeare was an assiduous reviser of his own work, rewriting, enlarging and emending to the end of his life.
Sams dissented from 20th-century orthodoxy, arguing strongly against the concept of memorial reconstruction by amnesiac actors, which he called a "wrong-headed" theory.
"[5] The pirated copies referred to in the preamble to the Folio were the 1619 quartos, mostly already superseded plays, for "Shakespeare was disposed to release his own popular early version[s] for acting and printing because his own masterly revision[s] would soon be forthcoming".
"Much of what is postulated for [Shakespeare's] boyhood years seems convincing," wrote Jonathan Keates, "including a background in Catholic recusancy and a schooling interrupted by family financial crisis.
"[57] "His unwillingness to collude with academics against actors", wrote Professor Stephen Logan, "springs from a deep respect for the past.