Engraving by Martin Droeshout, published in the First Folio.

Some have raised doubts whether Shakespeare, with his average education and humble origins, possibly could have written what has long been considered the best verse drama composed in the English language. Was this man “Shakespeare” a mere decoy for the true author who, for his (or her) own reasons could not reveal his (or her...) true identity—someone, at least, who could boast of a university education, a noble upbringing, and experience in the world outside England’s borders? There are worldwide societies, eminent actors, as well as a few scholars who insist upon the existence of a “Shakespeare conspiracy.” But not until 1769, 150 years after Shakespeare’s death, did these theories arise. To all appearances, Shakespeare’s contemporaries and immediate successors never seemed to question whether William Shakespeare wrote the celebrated works attributed to him.

The exact day of William Shakespeare’s birth is not known, but his baptism, traditionally conducted three days after a child’s birth, was recorded on April 26, 1564 and consequently, his birthday is celebrated on April 23.

His father John Shakespeare was a tanner, glover, grain dealer and town official of the thriving market town of Stratford-upon-Avon. His mother Mary Arden was the daughter of a prosperous, educated farmer. Though the records are lost, Shakespeare undoubtedly attended Stratford’s grammar school, where he would have acquired some knowledge of Latin and Greek and the classical writers. There is no record that Shakespeare acquired a university education of any kind.

At 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior. They had one daughter Susanna, followed by twins, Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died at age 11. From 1585, the year in which the twins were baptized, until 1592, when he is first referred to as a dramatist in London, we know nothing of Shakespeare’s life. Consequently, these seven years are filled with legend and conjecture, and we do not know what brought Shakespeare to London or how he entered its world of theater. The first reference to Shakespeare as an actor and playwright appears in 1592 and was made by Robert Greene, a rival playwright and pamphleteer, who attacked Shakespeare as an “upstart crow” for presuming to write plays (when he was a mere actor) and copying the works of established dramatists.

Subsequent references to Shakespeare indicate that as early as 1594 he was not only an actor and playwright, but also a partner in a new theater company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which soon became one of London’s two principal companies. The company’s name changed to the King’s Men in 1603 with the accession of James I, and it endured until the Puritans closed the theaters in 1642. From 1599 the company acted primarily at the Globe playhouse, in which Shakespeare held a one-tenth interest.

Presumed portrait of Shakespeare, recently discovered by Alec Cobbe

During his career of approximately 20 years, Shakespeare wrote or collaborated in what most scholars now agree upon as 38 plays. His earliest plays, including Love’s Labor’s Lost, The Comedy of Errors, Richard III, King John and The Taming of the Shrew, were written between 1589 and 1594. Between 1594 and 1599, Shakespeare wrote both Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar as well as other plays, including Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, and As You Like It. His great tragedies, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, were composed between 1599 and 1607, and were preceded by his last play traditionally categorized as comedy, Measure for Measure. The earlier histories, comedies and tragedies made way for Shakespeare’s final dramatic form—the so-called “Romances,” which were written between 1606 and 1611 and include Cymbeline, Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. These were the works of a playwright no longer bound in any way by the constraints of historical and tragic conventions.

Although single volumes of approximately half his plays were published in Shakespeare’s lifetime, there is no evidence that he oversaw their publication. It was not until 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, that 36 of his plays were published in the first Folio. Dramatic scripts were only just beginning to be considered “literature” as we understand it today, and so it is not at all surprising that so little attention was given to Shakespeare’s plays in published form until seven years after his death. However, we do know that Shakespeare oversaw the publication of three of his narrative poems and a collection of 154 sonnets.

By 1592, Shakespeare had emerged as a rising playwright in London, where he continued to enjoy fame and financial success as an actor, playwright and part-owner of London’s leading theater company. After nearly 20 years in the theater, in 1611 he retired to live as a country gentleman in Stratford, his birthplace, until his death on April 23, 1616.

Shakespeare was the man, who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there.

–John Dryden, 1688