From the age of seven to about 14, he attended Stratford Grammar School receiving an excellent well rounded education. At the age of 18 Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who was seven years his senior and three months pregnant. She was of 'yeoman' stock - her family owned a farm one mile west of Stratford in Shottery. He endured her until he could stand it no longer and fled to London to become an actor. He then became actor-manager and part-owner in the Blackfriars and afterwards the Globe Theatres.

Shakespeare's acting career was spent with the Lord Chamberlain's Company, where he was a first-rate actor. The company was renamed the King's Company in 1603 when James succeeded to the throne. Among the actors in the group was the famous Richard Burbage. The partnership acquired interests in two theatres in the Southwark area of London, near the banks of the Thames - the Globe and the Blackfriars.

Shakespeare returned to Stratford for his latter years where he died at the age of 52 and now lies at rest in his special grave at Holy Trinity Church.

 

The Plays of William Shakespeare

His 37 plays vary in type; historical romances, light, fantastic comedies, some are tragedies, all including the comical and the farcical. He was a shrewd business man, amassing quite a fortune in his time.

Comedies All's Well That Ends Well As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Love's Labour's Lost Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night's Dream Much Ado About Nothing Pericles, Prince of Tyre The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen The Winter's Tale

Histories King John Richard II Henry IV, Part 1 Henry IV, Part 2 Henry V Henry VI, Part 1 Henry VI, Part 2 Henry VI, Part 3 Richard III Henry VIII

Tragedies Romeo and Juliet Coriolanus Titus Andronicus Timon of Athens Julius Caesar Macbeth Hamlet Troilus and Cressida King Lear Othello Antony and Cleopatra Cymbeline

 

Beautiful books on Stratford and England in Shakespeare's Time:

 

Stratford upon Avon 

    'Stratford upon Avon', Nicholas Fogg, Phillimore & Co Ltd., 1986, ISBN 0 85033 519 1  

 

England in Shakespeare's Time  

  'The England of William Shakespeare', Michael Justin Davis, Dutton, 1987, ISBN 0-525-24587-1

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