The Upstart Crow Who Named the World
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In April 1564, a glove-maker's son was baptised in a market town on the River Avon. By the end of the century he would be a leading playwright in London, a shareholder in the Globe, and the author of works that would define the English language itself. William Shakespeare wrote at least thirty-seven plays, one hundred and fifty-four sonnets, and two narrative poems — a body of work so vast and so penetrating that four centuries later, the plays continue to invite performance, adaptation and argument. His writings preserve many early recorded uses of words and phrases, and phrases like "break the ice," "wild-goose chase," and "the be-all and the end-all" entered the language through his pen.
“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
1564–1616
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, baptised April 26, 1564. Died April 23, 1616 — traditionally the same date as his birthday. Fifty-two years that produced the greatest body of dramatic literature in any language.
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At least thirty-seven plays across comedy, tragedy, history, and romance — from The Comedy of Errors to The Tempest. Several late works were collaborations with John Fletcher.
154
Published in 1609, the Sonnets address a 'Fair Youth,' a 'Dark Lady,' and a 'Rival Poet' whose identities remain among the most debated mysteries in literary history.
Early uses
Shakespeare's works preserve many early uses of English words. First surviving written evidence does not prove that a writer invented a word; some were already circulating in speech or in sources later rediscovered.
Playwright, poet, actor, shareholder in the Globe Theatre, author of Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and the Sonnets
Defining Events
The Globe Theatre
In the winter of 1598, Shakespeare's company dismantled their old playhouse, The Theatre, timber by timber, stored the beams over winter, then ferried them across the Thames in spring and rebuilt them on the south bank as the Globe — the most famous theatre in history. Shakespeare was among the actor-shareholders who helped finance it. On its stage, audiences first heard Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. The Globe burned down during a performance of Henry VIII in 1613 when a theatrical cannon misfired and set the thatched roof ablaze.
Hamlet
Shakespeare's most celebrated play — and arguably the most analysed work of literature in any language. Written around 1600, written after the death of his son Hamnet in 1596, though the connection between that loss and the play is uncertain, Hamlet gave the world 'To be or not to be,' the play-within-a-play, and a prince whose indecision has fascinated audiences for four centuries. Richard Burbage, the company's leading actor and Shakespeare's closest collaborator, created the role and made it the most coveted part in English theatre.
The First Folio
Seven years after Shakespeare's death, his fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell published Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies — the First Folio. Without it, eighteen of his plays, including Macbeth, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, and Julius Caesar, might have been lost. Scholars estimate that about 750 copies were printed; 235 are known to survive. Today, surviving copies sell for millions of pounds and are among the most valuable books in the world.
Timeline
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon
Baptised April 26 at Holy Trinity Church, the third of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a prosperous glove-maker and alderman, and Mary Arden, daughter of a wealthy farming family. The family lived on Henley Street in a house that still stands today.
Marriage to Anne Hathaway
At eighteen, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, from the village of Shottery. A special licence was required because of her pregnancy — their daughter Susanna was baptised six months later. Twins Hamnet and Judith followed in 1585.
The Lost Years
Between the baptism of his twins and his first appearance in London's theatre world, Shakespeare vanishes from the historical record entirely. Theories range from schoolteaching to soldiering to joining a travelling acting company — but no documentary evidence survives.
The Upstart Crow
Robert Greene's deathbed pamphlet, A Groatsworth of Wit, attacks an 'upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers' — the first documented reference to Shakespeare as a playwright in London. The insult suggests he was already successful enough to provoke jealousy from university-educated rivals.
The Lord Chamberlain's Men
Shakespeare becomes a founding member and shareholder of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the playing company that would dominate London theatre for the next two decades. His partners include the great actor Richard Burbage and the comedian Will Kemp.
The Globe Opens
The company builds the Globe Theatre on Bankside, Southwark, from the timbers of their demolished Theatre in Shoreditch. Shakespeare initially holds a tenth share, with ownership proportions changing as partners withdraw. Julius Caesar is likely the first play performed on its stage — the beginning of the greatest run in theatrical history.
The King's Men
When James I ascends the English throne, he immediately takes Shakespeare's company under royal patronage. The Lord Chamberlain's Men become the King's Men — the highest honour available to actors in England, performing at court more often than any rival troupe.
Death in Stratford
Shakespeare dies on April 23, 1616 — traditionally his fifty-second birthday — and is buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. His will, signed a month earlier, famously leaves Anne his 'second best bed.' The bulk of his estate passes to his daughter Susanna.
Key Figures
Richard Burbage
England's greatest actor of his age and Shakespeare's most important collaborator for over twenty years. Burbage created the roles of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Richard III — inhabiting Shakespeare's greatest characters on the Globe stage. They were business partners as co-shareholders in both the Globe and the Blackfriars theatres, and their creative relationship was the engine of the company's success. When Burbage died in 1619, London mourned as if it had lost a prince.
Christopher Marlowe
The blazing genius who arrived in London first — a cobbler's son from Canterbury who wrote Tamburlaine the Great and Doctor Faustus before Shakespeare had found his voice. Marlowe transformed the use of blank verse on the English stage and showed Shakespeare what the language could do when unchained from rhyme. His violent death in a house in Deptford in 1593, at twenty-nine, cut short the career of a major dramatist. Whether they were friends, rivals, or both remains one of Elizabethan literature's great unanswered questions.
The Legacy of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's influence is so pervasive that it has become invisible — woven into the fabric of the English language itself. Every time someone speaks of a 'wild-goose chase,' 'breaks the ice,' or admits they are 'in a pickle,' they are quoting a man who died four centuries ago. His plays are performed more often than those of any other playwright in history, in virtually every language on earth. He gave us Hamlet's doubt, Lear's rage, Prospero's forgiveness, and Juliet's defiance — characters so deeply human that they feel less like inventions than like people we have always known.
He was not born to greatness. He was a glover's son from a market town, with no university degree and no aristocratic connections, who became part of a thriving theatre company through writing, acting and business partnership. Read his story through an imagined first-person voice — the first-person ePub brings you inside the mind of the man Ben Jonson called 'not of an age, but for all time.'
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Read the story of William Shakespeare — 8 chapters of historical narrative.
Dramatised first-person narrative; not an autobiography.