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"He was just like any other man, but that he was like all other men."

William Hazlitt

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First Folio of Shakespeare + bonus William Shakespeare on the Art of Love The Norton Facsimile Hardcover	Othello (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	Hamlet (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback
36% $264.95 $170.00	16% $7.99 $6.75	16% $7.99 $6.75
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Macbeth (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	Romeo and Juliet (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	Julius Caesar (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback
16% $7.99 $6.75	16% $7.99 $6.75	16% $7.99 $6.75
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As You Like It (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	The Taming of the Shrew No Fear Shakespeare Series Paperback	Twelfth Night (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback
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Romeo and Juliet Cambridge School Shakespeare, 3rd Edition Paperback	Othello Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback	The Merchant of Venice Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback
36% $17.95 $11.50	42% $17.95 $10.50	42% $17.95 $10.50
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The Merchant of Venice (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	A Midsummer Night's Dream (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	Macbeth Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback
16% $7.99 $6.75	16% $7.99 $6.75	34% $17.95 $11.80
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Hamlet Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback	A Midsummer Night's Dream Cambridge School Shakespeare, 3rd Edition Paperback	The Tempest (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback
40% $17.95 $10.80	34% $17.95 $11.80	16% $7.99 $6.75
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First Folio of Shakespeare + bonus William Shakespeare on the Art of Love The Norton Facsimile Hardcover	Julius Caesar Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback	The Taming of the Shrew Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback
36% $264.95 $170.00	26% $17.95 $13.25	26% $17.95 $13.25
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Much Ado about Nothing Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback	Much Ado about Nothing (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	King Richard II Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback
34% $17.95 $11.80	13% $7.99 $6.95	$27.99 $24.95





King John Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback	The Sonnets Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback	King Henry IV : Part 2 Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback
$29.99 $26.90	$17.95 $16.90	$27.99 $24.95





Coriolanus Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback	The Merry Wives of Windsor Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback	All's Well That Ends Well Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback
40% $30.00 $17.95	40% $30.00 $17.95	$17.95 $16.90





Antony and Cleopatra Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback	King Henry V Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback	Measure for Measure Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback
40% $28.00 $16.90	26% $17.95 $13.25	$17.95 $16.90





The Two Gentlemen of Verona Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback	The Comedy of Errors Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback	The Winter's Tale Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback
$28.99 $25.50	$17.95 $16.90	$17.95 $16.50





King Richard III Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback	Twelfth Night Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback	King Henry IV : Part 1 Cambridge School Shakespeare Paperback
33% $17.95 $11.95	34% $17.95 $11.80	40% $28.00 $16.90





As You Like It Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback	King Lear Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback	As You Like It The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback
$17.95 $16.95	33% $17.95 $11.95	$8.95 $7.95





The Comedy of Errors The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Henry VIII The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Measure for Measure The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback
$8.95 $7.95	$8.95 $7.95	$8.95 $8.25





Much Ado About Nothing The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Richard II The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Richard III The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback
$8.95 $7.95	$8.95 $7.95	$8.95 $8.45





The Tempest The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Troilus & Cressida The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	All's Well That Ends Well The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback
22% $8.95 $6.95	$8.95 $7.95	$8.95 $7.95





The Merchant of Venice The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Henry VI, Part 1 The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Pericles The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback
19% $8.95 $7.25	$8.95 $7.95	$8.95 $7.95





The Tempest Cambridge School Shakespeare, 2nd Edition Paperback	Henry V (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	A Comedy of Errors (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback
34% $17.95 $11.80	13% $7.99 $6.95	16% $7.99 $6.75





Henry IV (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	No Fear Shakespeare : A Companion (No Fear Shakespeare Series) A Companion (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	The Narrative Poems The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback
$9.99 $9.50	16% $12.99 $10.95	$8.95 $7.95





The Taming of the Shrew The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	The Sonnets Paperback	Hamlet The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback
$8.95 $7.95	$8.95 $7.95	22% $8.95 $6.95





A Midsummer Night's Dream The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Othello The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Julius Caesar The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback
22% $8.95 $6.95	22% $8.95 $6.95	$8.95 $7.95





Titus Andronicus The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	Henry the Fourth Part Two Penguin Shakespeare Paperback	Macbeth Penguin Shakespeare Paperback
$8.95 $7.95	$9.95 $8.95	$9.95 $8.95





King Lear : The 1608 Quarto and 1623 Folio Texts The Pelican Shakespeare Paperback	King Lear (No Fear Shakespeare Series) Paperback	Richard III Paperback
$8.95 $7.95	17% $8.99 $7.50	$14.99 $13.35





Sonnets Sparknotes No Fear Shakespeare Paperback	Antony and Cleopatra Paperback	Hamlet No Fear Shakespeare Illustrated Ser. Paperback
17% $8.99 $7.50	17% $8.99 $7.50	16% $12.99 $10.95





Romeo and Juliet No Fear Shakespeare Illustrated Ser. Paperback
29% $20.99 $14.95

William Shakespeare was born at Stratford upon Avon in April, 1564. He was the third child, and eldest son, of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. His father was one of the most prosperous men of Stratford, who held in turn the chief offices in the town. His mother was of gentle birth, the daughter of Robert Arden of Wilmcote. In December, 1582, Shakespeare married Ann Hathaway, daughter of a farmer of Shottery, near Stratford; their first child Susanna was baptized on May 6, 1583, and twins, Hamnet and Judith, on February 22, 1585. Little is known of Shakespeare's early life; but it is unlikely that a writer who dramatized such an incomparable range and variety of human kinds and experiences should have spent his early manhood entirely in placid pursuits in a country town. There is one tradition, not universally accepted, that he fled from Stratford because he was in trouble for deer stealing, and had fallen foul of Sir Thomas Lucy, the local magnate; another that he was for some time a schoolmaster.

From 1592 onwards the records are much fuller. In March, 1592, the Lord Strange's players produced a new play at the Rose Theatre called Harry the Sixth, which was very successful, and was probably the First Part of Henry VI. In the autumn of 1592 Robert Greene, the best known of the professional writers, as he was dying wrote a letter to three fellow writers in which he warned them against the ingratitude of players in general, and in particular against an 'upstart crow' who 'supposes he is as much able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes Factotum is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.' This is the first reference to Shakespeare, and the whole passage suggests that Shakespeare had become suddenly famous as a playwright. At this time Shakespeare was brought into touch with Edward Alleyne the great tragedian, and Christopher Marlowe, whose thundering parts of Tamburlaine, the Jew of Malta, and Dr Faustus Alleyne was acting, as well as Hieronimo, the hero of Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, the most famous of all Elizabethan plays.

In April, 1593, Shakespeare published his poem Venus and Adonis, which was dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: it was a great and lasting success, and was reprinted nine times in the next few years. In May, 1594, his second poem, The Rape of Lucrece, was also dedicated to Southampton.

There was little playing in 1593, for the theatres were shut during a severe outbreak of the plague; but in the autumn of 1594, when the plague ceased, the playing companies were reorganized, and Shakespeare became a sharer in the Lord Chamberlain's company who went to play in the Theatre in Shoreditch. During these months Marlowe and Kyd had died. Shakespeare was thus for a time without a rival. He had already written the three parts of Henry VI, Richard III, Titus Andronicus, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, The Comedy of Errors, and The Taming of the Shrew. Soon afterwards he wrote the first of his greater plays - Romeo and Juliet - and he followed this success in the next three years with A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard II, and The Merchant of Venice. The two parts of Henry VI, introducing Falstaff, the most popular of all his comic characters, were written in 1597-8.

The company left the Theatre in 1597 owing to disputes over a renewal of the ground lease, and went to play at the Curtain in the same neighbourhood. The disputes continued throughout 1598, and at Christmas the players settled the matter by demolishing the old Theatre and re-erecting a new playhouse on the South Bank of the Thames, near Southwark Cathedral. This playhouse was named the Globe. The expenses of the new building were shared by the chief members of the Company, including Shakespeare, who was now a man of some means. In 1596 he had bought New Place, a large house in the centre of Stratford, for £60, and through his father purchased a coat-of-arms from the Heralds, which was the official recognition that he and his family were gentlefolk.

By the summer of 1598 Shakespeare was recognized as the greatest of English dramatists. Booksellers were printing his more popular plays, at times even in pirated or stolen versions, and he received a remarkable tribute from a young writer named Francis Meres, in his book Palladis Tamia. In a long catalogue of English authors Meres gave Shakespeare more prominence than any other writer, and mentioned by name twelve of his plays.

Shortly before the Globe was opened, Shakespeare had completed the cycle of plays dealing with the whole story of the Wars of the Roses with Henry V. It was followed by As You Like It, and Julius Caesar, the first of the maturer tragedies. In the next three years he wrote Troilus and Cressida, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night.

On March 24, 1603, Queen Elizabeth died. The company had often performed before her, but they found her successor a far more enthusiastic patron. One of the first acts of King James was to take over the company and to promote them to be his own servants, so that henceforward they were known as the King's Men. They acted now very frequently at Court, and prospered accordingly. In the early years of the reign Shakespeare wrote the more sombre comedies, All's Well that Ends Well, and Measure for Measure, which were followed by Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. Then he returned to Roman themes with Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus.

Since 1601 Shakespeare had been writing less, and there were now a number of rival dramatists who were introducing new styles of drama, particularly Ben Jonson (whose first successful comedy, Every Man in his Humour, was acted by Shakespeare's company in 1598), Chapman, Dekker, Marston, and Beaumont and Fletcher who began to write in 1607. In 1608 the King's Men acquired a second playhouse, an indoor private theatre in the fashionable quarter of the Blackfriars. At private theatres, plays were performed indoors; the prices charged were higher than in the public playhouses, and the audience consequently was more select. Shakespeare seems to have retired from the stage about this time: his name does not occur in the various lists of players after 1607. Henceforward he lived for the most part at Stratford, where he was regarded as one of the most important citizens. He still wrote a few plays, and he tried his hand at the new form of tragi-comedy - a play with tragic incidents but a happy ending - which Beaumont and Fletcher had popularized. He wrote four of these - Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, which was acted at Court in 1611. For the last four years of his life he lived in retirement. His son Hamnet had died in 1596: his two daughters were now married. Shakespeare died at Stratford upon Avon on April 23, 1616, and was buried in the chancel of the church, before the high altar. Shortly afterwards a memorial which still exists, with a portrait bust, was set up on the North wall. His wife survived him.

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) on Shakespeare:

The striking peculiarity of Shakespeare’s mind was its generic quality, its power of communication with all other minds—so that it contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself, and had no one peculiar bias, or exclusive excellence more than another. He was just like any other man, but that he was like all other men. He was the least of an egotist that it was possible to be. He was nothing in himself; but he was all that others were, or that they could become. He not only had in himself the germs of every faculty and feeling, but he could follow them by anticipation, intuitively, into all their conceivable ramifications, through every change of fortune or conflict of passion, or turn of thought. He had “a mind reflecting ages past,” and present—all the people that ever lived are there. There was no respect of persons with him. His genius shone equally on the evil and on the good, on the wise and the foolish, the monarch and the beggar.

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William Shakespeare

"He was just like any other man, but that he was like all other men."

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