Biography

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.

Romeo and Juliet 2.2.43-44

 

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 as the son of John Shakespeare († 1601) and Mary Arden († 1608). He was their third child, his sisters Joan (1558 - 1559) and Margaret (1562 - 1563) had both died before his birth.

Despite the plague's raging in Stratford-upon-Avon at the time of his birth, Shakespeare lived and later on, he had five more siblings: Gilbert (1566 - 1612), Joan (1569 - 1646), Anne (1571 - 1579), Richard (1574 - 1613) and Edmund (1580 - 1607).

In 1582, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (1556 - 1623) and they had three children together, Susanna, their first-born (1583 - 1649), and the twins Hamnet (1585 - 1596) and Judith (1585 - 1662).

Between his marriage in 1582 and his first definite mention in the London theatre in 1592, there is hardly any evidence of Shakespeare's existence - the so-called ‘Lost Years’.

After remarkable success as a playwright in London, from around 1611 Shakespeare seems largely to have disengaged himself from the London theatre world and to have returned to Stratford-upon-Avon.

Shakespeare died in Stratford, aged fifty-two, on 23 April 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church two days later. His widow, Anne, died in 1623 and was buried beside him. Shakespeare's family line came to an end with the death of his grand-daughter Elizabeth, Susanna's daughter, in 1670.

Shakespeare’s Baptism
The National Archives: Shakespeare’s Will

back to top