Stratford & London
He maintained ties to Stratford while working in London, investing in property and retiring there around 1611. He died on 23 April 1616 and was buried in Holy Trinity Church.
1564 — 1616 · Stratford-upon-Avon
The soul of the age
Playwright, poet, and actor whose works redefined English drama—and whose phrases still echo in everyday speech four centuries later.
“To thine own self be true.”
Life & times
William Shakespeare was baptized on 26 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. He married Anne Hathaway in 1582 and by the early 1590s was established in London’s theatre world—as actor, shareholder, and writer for companies including the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later the King’s Men.
The theatres
His plays were written for performance: open-air venues like the Globe and indoor spaces like the Blackfriars demanded bold language, swift scene changes, and roles doubled across the company.
The First Folio
In 1623, fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell published Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, preserving 18 plays that might otherwise have been lost.
Major works
Shakespeare adapted sources—Plutarch, Holinshed, Italian novellas—into supple verse and prose. Editors group the canon (with scholarly debate on a few titles) into tragedies, comedies, and histories.
Tragedies
- HamletDenmark, revenge, doubt
- OthelloJealousy & deception
- King LearFamily, madness, storm
- MacbethAmbition & fate
- Romeo and JulietVerona’s star-cross’d lovers
Comedies
- Twelfth NightDisguise & desire
- A Midsummer Night’s DreamFairies in Athens’ wood
- Much Ado About NothingWit & matchmaking
- As You Like ItArden & “All the world’s a stage”
Histories
- Richard IIKingship & deposition
- Henry IV (Parts 1–2)Prince Hal & Falstaff
- Henry VFrom Eastcheap to Agincourt
- Richard IIIThe hunchback king
Legacy
Shakespeare helped fix early modern English as a literary language: roughly 1,700 words and compounds are first attested in his works (many are common today: bedroom, swagger, eyeball). His metaphors and soliloquies influenced novelists from Dickens to Toni Morrison; composers set his songs and stories; directors translate his plots into every medium.
The “authorship question” attracts popular speculation, but academic consensus attributes the core canon to the man from Stratford based on documentary evidence, publication history, and contemporary allusion. What matters for readers is less biography than the plays themselves—open to endless interpretation on stage and page.
From the sonnets
Sonnet 18 — “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
The 154 sonnets, published in 1609, explore time, beauty, friendship, and desire—often in tightly wrought fourteen-line arguments that reward slow reading aloud.