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William Shakespeare Audio - William Shakespeare plays on Audio Book CD dramatised recording on Aud
William Shakespeare (also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper, Shaxper, and Shake-speare, due to
the fact that spelling in Elizabethan times was not fixed and absolute) was born in
Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and
alderman from Snitterfield, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. His birth is assumed to
have occurred at the family house on Henley Street. Shakespeare's christening record dates to
April 26 of that year. Because christenings were performed within a few days of birth, tradition
has settled on April 23 as his birthday. This date provides a convenient symmetry because
Shakespeare died on the same day, April 23 (May 3 on the Gregorian calendar), in 1616. Shak
espeare probably attended King Edward VI Grammar School in central Stratford. While the
quality of Elizabethan-era grammar schools was uneven, the school probably would have
provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature. It is presumed that the young
Shakespeare attended this school, since as the son of a prominent town official he was entitled
to do so for free (although his attendance cannot be confirmed because the school's records
have not survived). At the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, who was twenty-six, on
November 28, 1582. One document identified her as being "of Temple Grafton," near Stratford,
and the marriage may have taken place there. Two neighbours of Anne posted bond that there
were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the
ceremony, presumably because Anne was three months pregnant.
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All's Well That Ends Well
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Love's Labor's Lost
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
The Taming of the Shrew
Twelfth Night
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
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William Shakespeare Audio - William Shakespeare plays on Audio Book CD dramatised recording on Audi
Antony & Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo & Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus & Cressida
Henry IV Part One
Henry IV Part Two
Henry V
Henry VI Part One
Henry VI Part Two
Henry VI Part Three
Henry VIII
King John
Richard II
Richard III
Cymbeline
Pericles
The Tempest
The Two Noble Kinsmen
The Winter's Tale
After his marriage, Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the
London theatrical scene. Indeed, the late 1580s are known as Shakespeare's "lost years"
because no evidence has survived to show exactly where he was or why he left Stratford for
London. On May 26, 1583, Shakespeare's first child, Susanna, was baptised at Stratford. Twin
children, a son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptised on February 2, 1585. Hamnet
died in 1596.
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William Shakespeare Audio - William Shakespeare plays on Audio Book CD dramatised recording on Audi
London and theatrical career
By 1592 Shakespeare was a playwright in London; he had enough of a reputation for Robert
Greene to denounce him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers
hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the
best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely
Shake-scene in a countrey." (The italicised line parodies the phrase, "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped
in a woman's hide" which Shakespeare wrote in Henry VI, part 3.)
By late 1594 Shakespeare was an actor, writer and part-owner of a playing company, known as
the Lord Chamberlain's Men - the company took its name, like others of the period, from its
aristocratic sponsor, in this case the Lord Chamberlain. The group became popular enough that
after the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I (1603), the new monarch adopted
the company and it became known as the King's Men. Shakespeare's writing shows him to
indeed be an actor, with many phrases, words, and references to acting, but there isn't an
academic approach to the art of theatre that might be expected.
By 1596 Shakespeare had moved to the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and by 1598 he
appeared at the top of a list of actors in Every Man in His Humour written by Ben Jonson. Also
by 1598 his name began to appear on the title pages of his plays, presumably as a selling point.
There is a tradition that Shakespeare, in addition to writing many of the plays his company
enacted, and being concerned as part-owner of the company with business and financial
details, continued to act in various parts such as the ghost of Hamlet's father, Adam in ""As You
Like It"", and as the Chorus in ""Henry V"".
He appears to have moved across the Thames River to Southwark sometime around 1599. By
1604, he had moved again, north of the river, where he lodged just north of St Paul's Cathedral
with a Huguenot family named Mountjoy. His residence there is worth noting because he helped
arrange a marriage between the Mountjoys' daughter and their apprentice Stephen Bellott.
Bellott later sued his father-in-law for defaulting on part of the promised dowry, and
Shakespeare was called as a witness.
Various documents recording legal affairs and commercial transactions show that Shakespeare
grew rich enough during his stay in London to buy a property in Blackfriars, London and own the
second-largest house in Stratford, New Place.
Later years
Shakespeare's last two plays were written in 1613, after which he appears to have retired to
Stratford. He died on April 23 1616, at the age of fifty-two, on the same date (though not same
day for England was still functioning under the Julian calendar) as Spanish writer and poet
Miguel de Cervantes. He also died on his birthday, if the speculation that he was born on April
23 is correct. He was married to Anne until his death and was survived by his two daughters,
Susanna and Judith. Susanna married Dr John Hall, but there are no direct descendants of the
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William Shakespeare Audio - William Shakespeare plays on Audio Book CD dramatised recording on Audi
poet and playwright alive today.
Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was
granted the honour of burial in the chancel not on account of his fame as a playwright but for
purchasing a share of the tithe of the church for £440 (a considerable sum of money at the
time). A monument placed by his family on the wall nearest his grave features a bust of him
posed in the act of writing. Each year on his claimed birthday, a new quill pen is placed in the
writing hand of the bust.
He is believed to have written the epitaph on his tombstone:
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
But cursed be he that moves my bones.
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