William Shakespeare (1564-1616) British, King Henry V 1900 Edition Printing. Part of the Temple Shakespeare series, comprised of 41 volumes in total published alphabetically between 1894 and 1935. 

Size: 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 x 5/8 in. 

#3101 #10 . 

William Shakespeare was born April 23rd, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. Most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King’s New School, where basic Latin text was standardized by royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education based upon classical authors. At the age of 18 he married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. After the birth of the twins there are few historical traces of him until he appeared as part of the London theater scene in 1592, shrouding much of his twenties and early thirties in mystery. By then he had written at least a few plays, drawing the contempt of other playwrights like Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe in his immediate circle who were known as the “University Wits,” so called for their educated approach to writing. He returned to Stratford-upon-Avon often during this early period, the first time to bury his son Hamnet, who died of unknown causes in 1596. Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613, with his early plays primarily comedies and histories that are regarded as some of the best works ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet,” “Othello,” “King Lear,” and “Macbeth,” all considered to be masterpieces of the English language. In the last phase of his life he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances and “problem plays”) such as “The Tempest.” After 1594, Shakespeare’s plays were performed at The Theatre in Shoreditch, and only by Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London. Some of Shakespeare’s plays were published in quarto editions beginning in 1594, and by 1598 his name had become a recognizable selling point, appearing on the title pages. He acted in his own and other plays frequently, and in 1599 members of the company built their own theater on the south bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new King James I, and changed its name to the King’s Men. Due to changing conventions and numerous outbreaks of bubonic plague the London theater scene became increasingly more turbulent, and Shakespeare retired in 1613 just a few weeks before the Globe burned down during the performance of “Henry VIII” on June 29th. Shakespeare died of unknown causes on his birthday in 1616. In 1623 John Hemings and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare’s, published a definitive text known as the First Folio, a collected edition of Shakespeare’s dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Shakespeare fell out of favor for a time, before resurgences in interest in his work, first in the 18th and later the 20th Century, and he is now widely regarded as the greatest writer in the history of the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, continually studied and interpreted. Countless sculptures and statues of him can be found around the world, and his usage and manipulation of the English language is credited with standardizing its modern grammar, spelling, and punctuation, with almost a third of the words in Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary in the English Language” published in 1755 attributed to him or his influence.