'Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets 'revealed to be London prostitute’?

The Dark Lady who inspired some of Shakespeare’s romantic sonnets may have had a rather unladylike profession, the Daily Mail reported Monday.

An expert on the Bard suggests she may have been a notorious prostitute called ‘Lucy Negro’ or ‘Black Luce’ who ran a brothel in Clerkenwell, London.

Shakespeare scholar Dr. Duncan Salkeld said he had unearthed documents that indicate she is ‘the foremost candidate for the dubious role of the Dark Lady.’

Many of the sonnets 127 to 152 are addressed to an unidentified woman with whom Shakespare imagines having an affair.

In Sonnet 144 the temptress is referred to as ‘my female evil’ and ‘my bad angel.’ The identity of the Dark Lady has mystified academics for years.

To her contemporaries, she was known as 'an arrant whore and a bawde,’ catering for everyone from ‘ingraunts’ (immigrants) to ‘welthyemen’ and the aristocracy.

The sonnets give few details describing her, apart from her dark eyes, hair and complexion, with hints that she was married.

This identity was tentatively suggested in the 1930s but Dr Salkeld has now found public records that convince him that she is 'the foremost candidate for the dubious role of the Dark Lady', the Independent reported.

The Bard imagines an unidentified woman - known as the 'Dark Lady' but not actually named by him in that way - in an adulterous sexual relationship.

She is the inspiration for many of the sonnets 127 to 152. She is 'my female evil' and 'my bad angel' in sonnet 144.