Sir Brian Vickers, an authority on Shakespeare at the Institute of English Studies at the University of London, found that a comparison of phrases in The Reign of King Edward III with early works by Shakespeare "proves conclusively" that the bard wrote it in collaboration with Thomas Kyd, a popular contemporary playwright, the newspaper says.

Vickers used the software called Pl@giarism to compare the text from the play, which was anonymously published in 1595, when Shakespeare was 32 years old, with other plays of the period. He found that there were 200 matches of "linguistic fingerprints" -- phrases of three of more words -- between the play and works by Shakespeare published before 1596. Likewise, there were a large number of matches in other scenes of the play with works by Kyd, The Times says.