Shakespeare's life

William Shakespeare (National Portrait Gallery),

Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity
unconfirmed.
William Shakespeare was an actor,
playwright, poet, and theatre
entrepreneur in London during the late
Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. He
was baptised on 26 April 1564 in
Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire,
England, in the Holy Trinity Church. At
age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway
with whom he had three children. He died
in his home town of Stratford on 23 April
1616 at the age of 52. Though more is
known about Shakespeare's life than
those of most other Elizabethan and
Jacobean writers, few personal
biographical facts survive about him,
which is unsurprising in the light of his
social status as a commoner, the low
esteem in which his profession was held,
and the general lack of interest of the
time in the personal lives of writers.[1]
Information about his life derives from
public instead of private documents: vital
records, real estate and tax records,
lawsuits, records of payments, and
references to Shakespeare and his works
in printed and hand-written texts.
Nevertheless, hundreds of biographies
have been written and more continue to
be, most of which rely on inferences and
the historical context of the 70 or so hard
facts recorded about Shakespeare the
man, a technique that sometimes leads
to embellishment or unwarranted
interpretation of the documented
record.[2]

Early life

The parish register entry of Shakespeare's

christening in the Holy Trinity Church reads, in Latin:
"Gulielmus filius Johannes Shaksper e" (William son
of John Shakespeare).

William Shakespeare[3] was born in

Stratford-upon-Avon. His exact date of
birth is not known—the baptismal record
was dated 26 April 1564—but has been
traditionally taken to be April 23, 1564,
which is also the Feast Day of Saint
George, the patron saint of England. He
was the first son and the first surviving
child in the family; two earlier children,
Joan and Margaret, had died early.[4] A
market town then of around 2000
residents about 100 miles (160 km)
northwest of London, Stratford was a
centre for the marketing, distribution, and
slaughter of sheep, as well as for hide
tanning and wool trading.

John Shakespeare's house, believed to be

Shakespeare's birthplace, now belonging to the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
His parents were John Shakespeare, a
successful glover originally from
Snitterfield in Warwickshire, and Mary
Arden, the youngest daughter of John's
father's landlord, a member of the local
gentry. The couple married around 1557
and lived on Henley Street when
Shakespeare was born, purportedly in a
house now known as Shakespeare's
Birthplace. They had eight children: Joan
(baptised 15 September 1558, died in
infancy), Margaret (bap. 2 December
1562 – buried 30 April 1563), William,
Gilbert (bap. 13 October 1566 – bur. 2
February 1612), Joan (bap. 15 April
1569 – bur. 4 November 1646), Anne
(bap. 28 September 1571 – bur. 4 April
1579), Richard (bap. 11 March 1574 –
bur. 4 February 1613) and Edmund (bap.
3 May 1580 – bur. London, 31 December
1607).[5]

Shakespeare's father, prosperous at the

time of William's birth, was appointed to
several municipal offices and served as
an alderman in 1565, culminating in a
term as bailiff, the chief magistrate of the
town council, in 1568. He fell upon hard
times for reasons unclear to history
beginning in 1576, when his son, William,
was 12.[6] He was prosecuted for
unlicensed dealing in wool and usury, and
he mortgaged and subsequently lost
some lands he had obtained through his
wife's inheritance that would have been
inherited by his eldest son. After four
years of non-attendance at council
meetings, he was finally replaced as
burgess in 1586.

Before being allowed to perform for the

general public, touring playing
companies were required to present their
play before the town council to be
licensed. Players first acted in Stratford
in 1568, the year that John Shakespeare
was bailiff.[7] Before Shakespeare turned
20, the Stratford town council had paid
for at least 18 performances by no fewer
than 12 playing companies.[8]
Education

A drawing from 1708, which was claimed to be a

portrait of Anne Hathaway

Most Shakespeare biographers qualify

his reputed attendance at The Guild
School in Stratford with phrases such as
"almost certainly" because all attendance
records for the time have been lost, but
Shakespeare's works exhibit detailed
knowledge of the grammar school
curriculum and none of the university life
that is evident in university-educated
playwrights such as Marlowe.[9] Edward
VI, the king honoured in the school's
name, had in the mid-16th century
diverted money from the dissolution of
the monasteries to endow a network of
grammar schools to "propagate good
literature... throughout the kingdom", but
the school had originally been set up by
the Guild of the Holy Cross, a church
institution in the town, early in the 15th
century.[10] It was further endowed in
1482. It was free to male children in
Stratford and it is presumed that the
young Shakespeare attended.[11]
Grammar schools varied in quality during
the Elizabethan era, but the grammar
curriculum was standardised by royal
decree throughout England,[12][13] and the
school would have provided an intensive
education in Latin grammar and literature
—"as good a formal literary training as
had any of his contemporaries".[14] As a
part of this education, the students were
exposed to Latin plays that students
performed to better understand the
language. One of Shakespeare's earliest
plays, The Comedy of Errors, bears
similarity to Plautus's Menaechmi, which
could well have been performed at the
school. There is no evidence that he
received a university education.
Marriage

On 28 November 1582 at Temple Grafton

near Stratford, the 18-year-old
Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway,
who was 26. Two neighbours of
Hathaway, Fulk Sandalls and John
Richardson, posted bond ensuring that
no legal impediments existed to the
union. The ceremony may have been
arranged in some haste; their first
daughter, Susanna, was born on 26 May
1583, six months later.

Their twin children, the son, Hamnet, and

the daughter, Judith, were baptised on 2
February 1585. Hamnet died in 1596,
Susanna in 1649 and Judith in 1662.

Lost years
After the birth of the twins, save for being
party to a lawsuit to recover part of his
mother's estate which had been
mortgaged and lost by default,
Shakespeare left no historical traces until
he is mentioned as part of the London
theatrical scene. Indeed, the seven-year
period between 1585 (when his twin
children were born) and 1592 (when
Robert Greene called him an "upstart
crow") is known as Shakespeare's "lost
years" because no evidence has survived
to show exactly where he was or why he
left Stratford for London.[15] However, it is
certain that before Greene’s attack
Shakespeare had acquired a reputation
as an actor and burgeoning
playwright.[16]

Speculative accounts

Shakespeare Before Thomas Lucy, a typical

Victorian illustration of the poaching anecdote

Several hypotheses have been put forth

to account for his life during this time,
and a number of accounts are given by
his earliest biographers.

According to Shakespeare's first

biographer Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare
fled Stratford after he got in trouble for
poaching deer from local squire Thomas
Lucy, and that he then wrote a scurrilous
ballad about Lucy. It is also reported,
according to a note added by Samuel
Johnson to the 1765 edition of Rowe's
Life, that Shakespeare minded the horses
for theatre patrons in London. Johnson
adds that that story had been told to
Alexander Pope by Rowe.[17]

In his Brief Lives, written 1669–96, John

Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had
been a "schoolmaster in the country" on
the authority of William Beeston, son of
Christopher Beeston, who had acted with
Shakespeare in Every Man in His Humour
(1598) as a fellow member of the Lord
Chamberlain's Men.[18] In 1985 E. A. J.
Honigmann proposed that Shakespeare
acted as a schoolmaster in
Lancashire,[19] on the evidence found in
the 1581 will of a member of the
Houghton family, referring to plays and
play-clothes and asking his kinsman
Thomas Hesketh to take care of "William
Shakeshaft, now dwelling with me".
Honigmann proposed that John Cottam,
Shakespeare's reputed last
schoolmaster, recommended the young
man.

"Shakeshaft," or "Shakeschafte," was a

common name in Lancashire at the time,
but also one attributed to Shakespeare's
grandfather Richard, who lived in
Warwickshire.[20] There are many
circumstantial links between
Shakespeare and the houses of
Houghton, Hesketh, and other northern
families of nobility.[21] In the will of
London goldsmith Thomas Savage (died
1611), Shakespeare's trustee at the
Globe Theatre, one of the beneficiaries
was Hesketh's widow.[22][23] Scope for
further speculation is offered by records
showing that Lord Strange's Men, a
company of players linked with
Shakespeare's early career in London,
regularly performed in the area and
would have been well known to the
Houghtons and the Heskeths.[24] Early
performances and the content of Love's
Labours Lost and Titus Andronicus
suggest Lancashire connections or
origins.[25] Members of the Stanley
family, the ancestors of Lord Strange,
figure prominently in Henry VI part 3 and
Richard III.[26] Malvolio and Oswald may
be inspired by Lord Strange's steward,
William Farington.[27]
In support of a Lancashire answer for the
lost years, Oliver Baker said simply: "In
stating that the poet may have found a
home with a band of players in
Lancashire and passed the most
impressionable years of his life in great
houses, and with cultured people, instead
of remaining in a butcher's yard till he
married and left for London, I may not
have provided the reading public with the
sort of detailed narrative of
Shakespeare's early life and work which
we should all like to read, but it is one
which puts less strain on their credulity
than what has sometimes been offered
them, and is at least less insulting to
their intelligence."[28]
Another idea is that Shakespeare may
have joined Queen Elizabeth's Men in
1587, after the sudden death of actor
William Knell in a fight while on a tour
which later took in Stratford. Samuel
Schoenbaum speculates that, "Maybe
Shakespeare took Knell's place and thus
found his way to London and stage-
land."[29] Shakespeare's father John, as
High Bailiff of Stratford, was responsible
for the acceptance and welfare of visiting
theatrical troupes.[30] However, there is
no direct evidence of Shakespeare's
membership of the Queen's Men, so it
remains speculation.

London and theatrical

career

Shakespeare's signature, from his will

As a married man Shakespeare was

ineligible to attend university and
debarred from taking up a formal
indentured apprenticeship in a trade with
an established guild but acting
companies had so-called
'apprenticeships' which had much looser
entry requirements.[31] This is a possible
clue to Shakespeare's route into the
profession.
Most scholars believe that by 1592
Shakespeare was a playwright in London,
and that he had enough of a reputation
for Robert Greene to denounce him in the
posthumous Greenes, Groats-worth of
Witte, bought with a million of Repentance
as "an upstart crow, beautified with our
feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt
in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well
able to bombast out a blanke verse as
the best of you: and being an absolute
Johannes factotum, is in his owne
conceit the onely Shake-scene in a
countrey." (The italicized line parodies the
phrase, "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a
woman's hide" which Shakespeare wrote
in Henry VI, part 3.)[32]
By late 1594, Shakespeare was part-
owner of a playing company, known as
the Lord Chamberlain's Men—like others
of the period, the company took its name
from its aristocratic sponsor, in this case
the Lord Chamberlain. The group became
popular enough that after the death of
Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I
(1603), the new monarch adopted the
company and it became known as the
King's Men, after the death of their
previous sponsor. The works are written
within the frame of reference of the
career actor, rather than a member of the
learned professions or from scholarly
book-learning.[33]
Shakespeare's coat of arms

The Shakespeare family had long sought

armorial bearings and the status of
gentleman. William's father John, a bailiff
of Stratford with a wife of good birth, was
eligible for a coat of arms and applied to
the College of Heralds, but evidently his
worsening financial status prevented him
from obtaining it. The application was
successfully renewed in 1596, most
probably at the instigation of William
himself as he was the more prosperous
at the time. The motto "Non sanz droict"
("Not without right") was attached to the
application, but it was not used on any
armorial displays that have survived. The
theme of social status and restoration
runs deep through the plots of many of
his plays, and at times Shakespeare
seems to mock his own longing.[34]

By 1596, Shakespeare had moved to the

parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and by
1598 he appeared at the top of a list of
actors in Every Man in His Humour
written by Ben Jonson. He is also listed
among the actors in Jonson's Sejanus:
His Fall. Also by 1598, his name began to
appear on the title pages of his plays,
presumably as a selling point.

There is a tradition that Shakespeare, in

addition to writing many of the plays his
company enacted and concerned with
business and financial details as part-
owner of the company, continued to act
in various parts, such as the ghost of
Hamlet's father, Adam in As You Like It,
and the Chorus in Henry V.[35]

He appears to have moved across the

River Thames to Southwark sometime
around 1599. In 1604, Shakespeare acted
as a matchmaker for his landlord's
daughter. Legal documents from 1612,
when the case was brought to trial, show
that Shakespeare was a tenant of
Christopher Mountjoy, a Huguenot tire-
maker (a maker of ornamental
headdresses) in the northwest of London
in 1604. Mountjoy's apprentice Stephen
Bellott wanted to marry Mountjoy's
daughter. Shakespeare was enlisted as a
go-between, to help negotiate the details
of the dowry. On Shakespeare's
assurances, the couple married. Eight
years later, Bellott sued his father-in-law
for delivering only part of the dowry.
During the Bellott v. Mountjoy case,
Shakespeare was called to testify, but
said he remembered little of the
circumstances.
Business affairs

New Place, Shakespeare's home, sketched in 1737

by George Vertue from a description

By the early 17th century, Shakespeare

had become very prosperous. Most of
his money went to secure his family's
position in Stratford. Shakespeare
himself seems to have lived in rented
accommodation while in London.
According to John Aubrey, he travelled to
Stratford to stay with his family for a
period each year.[36] Shakespeare grew
rich enough to buy the second-largest
house in Stratford, New Place, which he
acquired in 1597 for £60 from William
Underhill. The Stratford chamberlain's
accounts in 1598 record a sale of stone
to the council from "Mr Shaxpere", which
may have been related to remodelling
work on the newly purchased house.[37]
The purchase was thrown into doubt
when evidence emerged that Underhill,
who died shortly after the sale, had been
poisoned by his oldest son, but the sale
was confirmed by the new heir Hercules
Underhill when he came of age in
1602.[38]
In 1598 the local council ordered an
investigation into the hoarding of grain,
as there had been a run of bad harvests
causing a steep increase in prices.
Speculators were acquiring excess
quantities in the hope of profiting from
scarcity. The survey includes
Shakespeare's household, recording that
he possessed ten quarters of malt. This
has often been interpreted as evidence
that he was listed as a hoarder. Others
argue that Shakespeare's holding was
not unusual. According to Mark Eccles,
"the schoolmaster, Mr. Aspinall, had
eleven quarters, and the vicar, Mr. Byfield,
had six of his own and four of his
sister's".[37] Samuel Schoenbaum and
B.R. Lewis, however, suggest that he
purchased the malt as an investment,
since he later sued a neighbour, Philip
Rogers, for an unpaid debt for twenty
bushels of malt.[37] Bruce Boehrer argues
that the sale to Rogers, over six
installments, was a kind of "wholesale to
retail" arrangement, since Rogers was an
apothecary who would have used the
malt as raw material for his products.[37]
Boehrer comments that,

Shakespeare had established

himself in Stratford as the
keeper of a great house, the
owner of large gardens and
 granaries, a man with gener ous
stores of barley which one could
purchase, at need, for a price. In
short, he had become an
entrepreneur specialising in
real estate and agricultur al
products, an aspect of his
identity further enhanced b y his
investments in local farmland
and farm produce. [37]

Shakespeare's biggest acquisitions were

land holdings and a lease on tithes in Old
Stratford, to the north of the town. He
bought a share in the lease on tithes for
£440 in 1605, giving him income from
grain and hay, as well as from wool, lamb
and other items in Stratford town. He
purchased 107 acres of farmland for
£320 in 1607, making two local farmers
his tenants. Boehrer suggests he was
pursuing an "overall investment strategy
aimed at controlling as much as possible
of the local grain market", a strategy that
was highly successful.[37] In 1614
Shakespeare's profits were potentially
threatened by a dispute over enclosure,
when local businessman William Combe
attempted to take control of common
land in Welcombe, part of the area over
which Shakespeare had leased tithes.
The town clerk Thomas Greene, who
opposed the enclosure, recorded a
conversation with Shakespeare about the
issue. Shakespeare said he believed the
enclosure would not go through, a
prediction that turned out to be
correct.[39] Greene also recorded that
Shakespeare had told Greene's brother
that "I was not able to bear the enclosing
of Welcombe". It is unclear from the
context whether Shakespeare is
speaking of his own feelings, or referring
to Thomas's opposition.[40]

Shakespeare's last major purchase was

in March 1613, when he bought an
apartment in a gatehouse in the former
Blackfriars priory;[41] The Gatehouse was
near Blackfriars theatre, which
Shakespeare's company used as their
winter playhouse from 1608. The
purchase was probably an investment, as
Shakespeare was living mainly in
Stratford by this time, and the apartment
was rented out to one John Robinson.
Robinson may be the same man
recorded as a labourer in Stratford, in
which case it is possible he worked for
Shakespeare. He may be the same John
Robinson who was one of the witnesses
to Shakespeare's will.[42]

Later years and death

Shakespeare's funerary monument

Rowe was the first biographer to pass

down the tradition that Shakespeare
retired to Stratford some years before his
death;[43] but retirement from all work
was uncommon at that time,[44] and
Shakespeare continued to visit London.
In 1612 he was called as a witness in the
Bellott v. Mountjoy case.[45] A year later
he was back in London to make the
Gatehouse purchase.

In June 1613 Shakespeare's daughter

Susanna was slandered by John Lane, a
local man who claimed she had caught
gonorrhea from a lover. Susanna and her
husband Dr John Hall sued for slander.
Lane failed to appear and was convicted.
From November 1614 Shakespeare was
in London for several weeks with his son-
in-law, Hall.[46]

In the last few weeks of Shakespeare's

life, the man who was to marry his
younger daughter Judith—a tavern-
keeper named Thomas Quiney—was
charged in the local church court with
"fornication". A woman named Margaret
Wheeler had given birth to a child and
claimed it was Quiney's; she and the child
both died soon after. Quiney was
thereafter disgraced, and Shakespeare
revised his will to ensure that Judith's
interest in his estate was protected from
possible malfeasance on Quiney's part.

Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the

reputed age of 52.[47] He died within a
month of signing his will, a document
which he begins by describing himself as
being in "perfect health". No extant
contemporary source explains how or
why he died. After half a century had
passed, 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."[48][49] It is certainly possible
he caught a fever after such a meeting,
for Shakespeare knew Jonson and
Drayton. Of the tributes that started to
come from fellow authors, one refers to
his relatively early death: "We wondered,
Shakespeare, that thou went'st so
soon/From the world's stage to the
grave's tiring room."[50]

Shakespeare was survived by his wife

Anne and by two daughters, Susanna and
Judith. His son Hamnet had died in 1596.
His last surviving descendant was his
granddaughter Elizabeth Hall, daughter
of Susanna and John Hall. There are no
direct descendants of the poet and
playwright alive today, but the diarist
John Aubrey recalls in his Brief Lives that
William Davenant, his godson, was
"contented" to be believed Shakespeare's
actual son. Davenant's mother was the
wife of a vintner at the Crown Tavern in
Oxford, on the road between London and
Stratford, where Shakespeare would stay
when travelling between his home and
the capital.[51]
Shakespeare's gravestone.

Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of

Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-
Avon. He was granted the honour of
burial in the chancel not on account of
his fame as a playwright but for
purchasing a share of the tithe of the
church for £440 (a considerable sum of
money at the time). A monument on the
wall nearest his grave, probably placed by
his family,[52] features a bust showing
Shakespeare posed in the act of writing.
Each year on his claimed birthday, a new
quill pen is placed in the writing hand of
the bust. He is believed to have written
the epitaph on his tombstone.[53]

“ Good friend, for Jesus' sake

forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares
these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my
bones. ”
Shakespeare genealogy

See also
Shakespeare's reputation
 Shakespeare's Way
William Shakespeare's religion

Citations
1. Bate 1998, p. 4; Southworth 2000, p. 5;
Wells 1997, pp. 4–5
2. Holderness 2011, p. 19.
3. also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper and
Shake-speare, as spelling in Elizabethan
times was not fixed and absolute. See
Spelling of Shakespeare's name.
4. Potter 2012, 1, 10.
5. Chambers 1930, II:1-2.
6. Schoone-Jongen 2008, 13
7. Potter 2012, 15.
8. Schoone-Jongen 2008, 15.
9. Potter 2012, 48; Bate 1998, 8;
Schoenbaum 1987, 62–63.
10. Bate, Jonathan (2008). "Stratford
Grammar". Soul of the Age: the life, mind
and world of William Shakespeare.
London: Viking. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-670-
91482-1.
11. Honan, Park. Shakespeare: A Life.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 43.
12. Baldwin 1944, 179-80, 183; Cressy
1975, 28, 29.
13. Cressy, David (1975), Education in
Tudor and Stuart England, New York: St
Martin's Press, ISBN 0-7131-5817-4, OCLC
2148260, pp. 28-9.
14. Baldwin 1944, 117; 663
15. Shakespeare: The Lost Years by E. A.
J. Honigmann, Manchester University
Press; 2nd edition, 1999, page 1.
16. Ackroyd, Peter. Shakespeare the
Biography. Chatto & Windus, 2005, pp. 97,
187; Duncan-Jones, Katherine.
Shakespeare an Ungentle Life. Methuen
Drama, 2010, p. 48.
17. Schoenbaum, Samuel. Shakespeare's
Lives. Clarendon Press. 1991. page 75.
ISBN 0-19-818618-5
18. Schoenbaum, 1987, pp. 110–111.
19. Honigmann, E. A. J. (1985).
Shakespeare: The Lost Years.
Manchester, England: Manchester
University Press. pp. 41–48. ISBN 0-7190-
1743-2.
20. Keen, Alan and Roger Lubbock (1954).
The Annotator. New York: Macmillan Co.
p. 75.
21. Keen & Lubbock. The Annotator.
pp. 109 et seq.
22. Hotson, Leslie (1949). Shakespeare's
Sonnets Dated. New York: Oxford
University Press. OCLC 531743921 .,
quoted in Schoenbaum, S. (1991).
Shakespeare's Lives. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press. p. 544. ISBN 0-
19-818618-5.
23. Michael Wood "In Search of
Shakespeare" (2003) BBC Books, ISBN 0-
563-52141-4 p.80
24. Chambers, E.K (1944). Shakespearean
gleanings. OCLC 463278779 ., quoted in
Schoenbaum (1991: 535–6)
25. Keen & Lubbock. The Annotator.
pp. 56–60; 63–71.
26. Keen & Lubbock. The Annotator.
pp. 83–85.
27. Keen & Lubbock. The Annotator.
p. 186.
28. Baker, Oliver. Shakespeare's
Warwickshire and the Unknown Years.
quoted in The Annotator. p. 74.
29. S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare, the
Globe & the World, Oxford University
Press, 1979, p.43.
30. Pierce, Patricia, "Shakespeare and the
Forgotten Heroes", History Today, Volume:
56. Issue: 7, July 2006, p.3.
31. English Professional Theatre 1530-
1660 by G. Wickham, H. Berry and W.
Ingram, Cambridge U.P.; 2000, page 155.
"as stage-players had no formal
recognition as a Guild, this sort of training
(was not) hedged around with the
constraints of age and marital status
imposed by the City on more formal kinds
of apprenticeship"
32. Schoenbaum, Samuel (1977). "The
upstart crow". A Compact Documentary
Life. New York: Oxford University Press.
pp. 151–158. ISBN 0-19-502211-4.
33. Neilson, William (1915). "The
Baconian question". The Facts about
Shakespeare. New York: Macmillan.
pp. 164–165. OCLC 358453 . “Records
amply establish the identity between
Shakespeare the actor and the writer. ...
The extent of observation and knowledge
in the plays is, indeed, remarkable but it is
not accompanied by any indication of
thorough scholarship, or a detailed
connection with any profession outside of
the theater...”
34. Greenblatt (2004: "The Dream of
Restoration", 76–86)
35. Article on Shakespeare's Globe
Theatre Zee News on Shakespeare,
accessed 23 January 2007.
36. Dobson & Wells (ed), The Oxford
Companion to Shakespeare, Oxford
University Press, 2001, p.28.
37. Boehrer, Bruce, Environmental
Degradation in Jacobean Drama,
Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp.208-
9.
38. Schoenbaum, Samuel, Shakespeare: A
Compact Documentary Life, Oxford
University Press, 1987, p.234.
39. Dobson & Wells (ed), The Oxford
Companion to Shakespeare, Oxford
University Press, 2001, p.128.
40. See Schoenbaum, S, William
Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary
Life, p. 284-5. Schoenbaum concludes
that "any attempt to interpret the passage
is guesswork, and no more". It has also
been suggested that the word "bear"
(spelled "beare" in the original) was
intended for "bar" - meaning that Greene
would not be able to stop the enclosure.
See Lois Potter, The Life of William
Shakespeare: A Critical Biography, John
Wiley, 2012, P.404. Palmer, A & Palmer V,
Who's Who in Shakespeare's England,
Palgrave Macmillan, 1999, p.96.
41. Schoenbaum, 1977, pp. 272–274
42. Pogue, Kate, Shakespeare's Friends,
Greenwood, 2006, pp.42-3.
43. Ackroyd, p. 476.
44. Honan, pp. 382–383.
45. Honan, p. 326.; Ackroyd, pp. 462–464.
46. Honan, 387.
47. His age and the date are inscribed in
Latin on his funerary monument: AETATIS
53 DIE 23 APR
48. Schoenbaum, Samuel. Shakespeare's
Lives. Oxford University Press. 1991.
ISBN 9780198186182. Page 78.
49. Rowse, A. L. William Shakespeare; A
Biography. Harper & Row. 1963. Page 453.
50. Kinney, Arthur F., editor. The Oxford
Handbook of Shakespeare. Oxford
University Press. 2012.
ISBN 9780199566105. Page 11. Verse by
James Mabbe printed in the First Folio.
51. Aubrey, John (1680). "William
Davenant, Knight". Brief Lives. London.
52. Cultural Shakespeare: Essays in the
Shakespeare Myth by Graham
Holderness, Univ of Hertfordshire Press,
2001, pages 152–54.
53. Dowdall, John (1693). Traditionary
anecdotes of Shakespeare: Collected in
Warwickshire, in the year MDCXCIII
(quoted in William Shakespeare: A
Documentary Life by Samuel
Schoenbaum (1975) ed.).

References
Baldwin, T. W. (1944). William
Shakespere's Small Latine & Lesse
Greeke . Urbana: University of Illinois
Press. OCLC 654144828 . Archived
from the original on 3 March 2012.
Bate, Jonathan (1998). The Genius of
Shakespeare . Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-512823-9.
Bearman, Robert (1994). Shakespeare
in the Stratford Records. Alan Sutton
Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0-75-090632-
6.
Campbell, Oscar James, ed. (1966). A
Shakespeare Encyclopedia. London:
Methuen.
Chambers, E. K. (1930). William
Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and
Problems. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-
0-19-811774-2.
Ellis, David (2012). The Truth about
William Shakespeare. Edinburgh
University Press. ISBN 978-0-74-
864666-1.
Holderness, Graham (2011). Nine Lives
of William Shakespeare. London, New
York: Continuum. ISBN 978-1-4411-
5185-8.
Knight, W. Nicholas (1973).
Shakespeare’s Hidden Life:
Shakespeare at the Law 1585-1595.
Mason & Lipscomb. ISBN 0-88405-
003-3.
Lewis, B. Roland (1940). The
Shakespeare Documents. Stanford,
London: Stanford University Press,
Oxford University Press.
Loomis, Catherine, ed. (2002). William
Shakespeare: A Documentary Volume .
Dictionary of Literary Biography. 263.
Detroit: Gale Group. ISBN 978-0-7876-
6007-9. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
Potter, Lois (2012). The Life of William
Shakespeare: A Critical Biography.
Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-
20784-9.
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Schoone-Jongen, Terence (2008).
Shakespeare's Companies: William
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Southworth, John (2000). Shakespeare
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External links
The Shakespeare Birthplace trust has
an excellent discussion of
Shakespeare's life on its website.
A Warwickshire Lad by George
Madden Martin
The Internet Shakespeare Editions
provides an extensive section on his
life and times.
The Stratford Guide A visitor Guide to
Stratford Upon Avon. Has sections on
Shakespeare's life, Attractions in
Stratford and much more.
The Shakespeare Resource Center A
directory of Web resources for online
Shakespearean study. Includes a
Shakespeare biography, works
timeline, play synopses, and language
resources.
Timeline of Shakespeare's life with
links to pictures of documents along
with historical events. This is part of
the interactive PBS web site with other
resources as background for the
documentary In Search of
Shakespeare with Michael Wood from
the BBC.
The Shakespeare Paper Trail with
Documenting the Early Years and
Documenting the Later Years are two
sets of interactive articles written by
Michael Wood to go with his BBC
documentary In Search of Shakespeare
Shakespeare's family tree
The Literature Network discusses
Shakespeare's biography, his plays,
and the history of them. There are lists
of all of his plays and the order in
which they were written.
Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to
Shakespeare A comprehensive
resource that includes historical
information and background on
 Shakespeare's plays and in depth
literary critiques.

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