Untitled

• William Shakespeare


  English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist
• Born


  c. April 23, 1564
• Died


  April 23, 1616 (aged 52)
• Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
• Shakespeare


  • Married Anne Hathaway
  • Had three children: Susanna, Hamnet and Judith
  • Began successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company
  • Retired to Stratford around 1613
  • Died three years later
• Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613
• Types of plays Shakespeare wrote

  • Comedies
  • Histories
  • Tragedies
  • Tragicomedies (romances)
• In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays

  
• Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning family
• Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553
• Shakespeare's "lost years"


  The years between 1585 and 1592, where there are few historical traces of Shakespeare's life

  
• By 1592, Shakespeare was sufficiently known in London to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene
• After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London
• In 1599, a partnership of members of the company built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe
• In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre
• Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright
• Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford
• After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613
• Burbage stated that after purchasing the lease of the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry Evans, the King's Men "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakespeare, etc."
• The bubonic plague raged in London throughout 1609
• The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague (a total of over 60 months closure between May 1603 and February 1610)
• Retirement from all work was uncommon at that time
• Shakespeare continued to visit London during the years 1611–1614
• In 1612, he was called as a witness in Bellott v Mountjoy, a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary
• In March 1613, he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory
• From November 1614, he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall
• His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright of the King's Men
• He retired in 1613, before the Globe Theatre burned down during the performance of Henry VIII on 29 June
• Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52
• No extant contemporary source explains how or why he died
• Half a century later, John Ward, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted"
• Shakespeare was survived by his wife and two daughters
• Susanna had married a physician, John Hall, in 1607
• Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare's death
• Shakespeare signed his last will and testament on 25 March 1616; the following day, Thomas Quiney, his new son-in-law, was found guilty of fathering an illegitimate son by Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during childbirth
• Thomas was ordered by the church court to do public penance, which would have caused much shame and embarrassment for the Shakespeare family
• Shakespeare bequeathed the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna under stipulations that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body"
• The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying
• The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct line
• Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one-third of his estate automatically