William Shakespeare, (baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, England—died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon), English poet and playwright, often considered the greatest writer in world literature.
Shakespeare spent his early life in Stratford-upon-Avon, receiving at most a grammar-school education, and at age 18 he married a local woman, Anne Hathaway. By 1594 he was apparently a rising playwright in London and an actor in a leading theatre company.
His earliest plays seem to date from the late 1580s to the mid-1590s and include the comedies The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; history plays based on the lives of the English kings, including Henry VI (parts 1, 2, and 3), Richard III, and Richard II; and the tragedy Romeo and Juliet.
Approximately between 1600 and 1607 he wrote the comedies Twelfth Night, All’s Well That Ends Well, as well as the great tragedies Hamlet (probably begun in 1599), Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear, which mark the summit of his art.
He wrote 39 plays and 154 sonnets.
Shakespeare retired to Stratford before 1610 and lived as a country gentleman until his death. The first collected edition of his plays, or First Folio, was published in 1623.
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