Facts About William Shakespeare

• Shakespeare was born on April 26th 1564, Stratford. [only later to be changed to Stratford Upon Avon]
• Shakespeare is widely considered the world's greatest dramatist.
• Shakespeare wrote 38 plays and 154 sonnets.
• Shakespeare is most likely to have received a classical Latin education at King's New School in Stratford.
• Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway when he was only 18;
• Anne {26} was 3 months pregnant when they married.
• Their first child, Susanna was born six months after their marriage.
• They later had two twins, Hamnet and Judith.
• Shakespeare had seven brothers and sisters
•   Shakespeare worked as an actor, writer and co-owner of a drama company called the 'Lord Chamberlain's Men'- Later known as the King's Men.
• His greatest plays include Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
• In the introduction to the First Folio, playwright Ben Johnson wrote a preface to Shakespeare's  work with the quote '[Shakespeare] is not of an age, but for all time.'
• Shakespeare's popularity blossomed after the Romantic period and during the Victorian period- receiving the praise of poets, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Hugo and Voltaire.