*1564 - 1616*

On April 23rd 1564, a little child was born on Henly Street in the British town Stratford-on-Avon. The child was the third of eight children. His name was William Shakespeare, and he is now known as the most famous writer of all time.

Shakespeare's parents were John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. John was a respected man with many jobs, e.g. mayor, town council and justice of peace. Mary Arden came from a wealthy family, and she got to bear 8 kids in her lifetime. Unfortunately, John Shakespeare's business went down when William Shakespeare was 12. Shakespeare got to study a lot both as a child and a young man, e.g. latin and greek studies, reading, writing and talking. His two schoolteachers were Simon Hunt and Thomas Jenkins.

When William was 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was 10 years older than him at that time. In 1583 they got their first child, Susanna. Two years later they got twins, Judeth and Hamnet. Unfortunately Hamnet died at eleven in 1596 (a possible reason of death was maybe the 1594-plague), and caused a great sorrow for William Shakespeare. Later a dear friend of Shakespeare, Thomas Quincy, married Judeth.

When William was 23, he was caught poaching, so he had to move to London leaving his wife and kids in Stratford-on-Avon. In London Shakespeare established a great career both as an actor and a writer. Then came "The Hidden Years", a period where no material has been found on William Shakespeare. Some people think that he maybe ran away from the law or became a butcher's apprentice.

The years after "The Hidden Years" were the greatest ones for William Shakespeare, at least concerning his career and his authorship. In 1593 he found a sponser, Henry Wriothsley, and that caused the writing of Shakespeare's two long and famous poems, "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "Rape of Lucrece" (1594). His career as an actor, writer and also director made him a very rich man, and in 1597 he bought a big house for his family and himself called "New Place". Another thing that made Shakespeare famous was the publishing of 154 of his sonnets in 1609.

Anyway, before the publishing of these sonnets, Shakespeare worked for an acting company called "Lord Chamberlaid's Men", which in 1603 changed name to "The King's Men" because King James 1st took over. This company became the largest and most famous acting company, probably because of Shakespeare performing and working for them.

In 1611, Shakespeare retired from his work and on March 25th in 1616 he finished his will. One month later he died on his birthday, 52 years old. Because of that time's treatment of dead corpses, he wrote his own epitaph sounding like this:

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
to dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones
and curst be he that moves my bones."

Many years after Shakespeare's death, some people wanted to check his grave to see if it was really The Bard buried there, but the government forbade it, and no one has dishonoured Shakespeare's grave.

For many years, there has been debate of Shakespeare's identity. Involved in this debate are the Stratford side and the Oxford side. The Stratford side believe that Shakespeare really lived. The Oxford side claims that the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, was the true author of these plays. Anyway, he died long before a lot of the famous plays were published, and also Shakespeare has had to be a far more educated man than Edward de Vere was.

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