William Shakespeare

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Standard Name: Shakespeare, William
The "Chandos" portrait of William Shakespeare, perhaps by John Taylor, c. 1610. Its claims to authenticity are doubtful, but better than most. It was the first portrait acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, 1856. An oval frame is painted round Shakespeare, who looks inscrutably at the viewer, with a bald forehead, moustache and small beard, wearing a black coat with white collar and a hoop earring in his left ear.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Augusta Gregory
AG and her sisters received little formal education; their lessons took second place to their brothers'.
McDiarmid, Lucy et al. “Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography”. Selected Writings, Penguin, 1995, pp. xi - xliv, 525.
xiii
Under her evangelical mother's strict supervision, they were taught by a succession of governesses and tutors, who...
Education Marie Corelli
Looking back on her early education, MC wrote I managed to develop into a curiously determined independent little personality, with ideas and opinions more suited to some clever young man. . . . I instinctively...
Education Harriette Wilson
While she was still in her teens, although engaged in her second paid sexual relationship, her lover Frederic Lamb set out to get her reading Milton , Shakespeare , Byron , theRambler, Virgil
Education Andrea Levy
AL attended Highbury Hill Grammar School , where she studied the Victorians on her history syllabus and Shakespeare and the Metaphysical poets for A-level English (an exam which, she says, she nearly failed). She got...
Education Frances Horovitz
As a sixth-form student, she went on a class trip to Italy, where she was introduced to the art of the Renaissance. Shakespeare was another important discovery. Her class also took trips to the...
Education Alice Walker
On her own the child AW was always reading. At eight she identified in someone else's house a photograph of Booker T. Washington —and asked, Why don't you give it to me, please?
White, Evelyn. Alice Walker. A Life. Norton, 2004.
31
After...
Education Michèle Roberts
She chose the medieval option. Her tutor was Rosemary Woolf , and she studied no authors later than Shakespeare . She reports the results of this in two different ways. In one version the course...
Education Rose Tremain
At this stage of her life, Rosie's great interest and talent was not writing but painting, like her sister. She set out to make a huge, hanging, illustrated copy of Keats 's Ode to Autumn...
Education Carola Oman
The children's great delight was their mother reading aloud: theLamb s' Tales from Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott 's poems, William Edmonstoune Aytoun 's Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, 1865, Mary Martha Sherwood
Education Harold Pinter
HP attended Hackney Downs Grammar School , where he excelled at sports, particularly as a runner. Joe Brearley , his teacher of English, was important in nurturing his love of poetry and drama, and casting...
Education Emily Hickey
She demonstrated an early interest in reading. Scott , Tennyson , and Barrett Browning numbered among her early favourites. Her father, however, did not allow her to read Shakespeare , as he was repelled by...
Education Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Mary Howitt , a friend of the Smith family, wrote approvingly of Benjamin Leigh Smith's unorthodox methods of childrearing: Objecting to schools he keeps his children at home, and their knowledge is gained by reading...
Education Florence Dixie
Lady Florence was at first educated at home in Scotland. After a first, unsuccessful attempt to place her in a convent she had, in France, an Irish Catholic governess whom she calls Miss O'Leary...
Education Georgiana Fullerton
She could read by four-and-a-half, and recalls an early admiration for hymns by Anna Letitia Barbauld and Maria Edgeworth . Julius Cæsar, the first Shakespearean play that she saw, left a lasting impression. Later...
Education Margery Allingham
MA was a fluent reader and writer by the time she was seven years old.
Thorogood, Julia. Margery Allingham: A Biography. Heinmann, 1991.
25
She then attended various schools, except for a period of learning at home with a governess after she had...

Timeline

About March 1681: Nahum Tate's re-written version of Shakespeare's...

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About March 1681

Nahum Tate 's re-written version of Shakespeare 's tragedy King Lear was staged in London; it was printed the same year.
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.

1702: An Act to Oblige Jews to Maintain and Provide...

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1702

An Act to Oblige Jews to Maintain and Provide for their Protestant Children forbade Jewish fathers from disinheriting daughters who (like Jessica in William ShakespeareThe Merchant of Venice) converted to Christianity.
Kerrigan, John. “Fathers Who Live Too Long”. London Review of Books, Vol.
35
, No. 17, 13 Sept. 2013, pp. 18-19.
18

20 May 1707: Jacob Tonson the elder signed the first of...

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20 May 1707

Jacob Tonson the elder signed the first of two copyright agreements giving him sole right in Shakespeare 's plays.
Nichol, Donald W. “Warburton (Not!) on copyright: Clearing up the Misattribution of An Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Literary Property”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
19
, No. 2, 1996, pp. 171-82.
172
Bernard, Stephen. Whig Literary Culture and the Canon: the Legacy of the Tonsons. Oxford University Press, 2015.

10 April 1710: An Act for the Encouragement of Learning...

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10 April 1710

An Act for the Encouragement of Learning (later called the Copyright Act), passed in 1709, became effective.
McDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678-1730. Clarendon, 1998.
29
Sutherland, James. Defoe. Methuen, 1937.
170

6 December 1718: Nicholas Rowe, playwright, translator, and...

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6 December 1718

Nicholas Rowe , playwright, translator, and editor of Shakespeare , died after four years in the post of Poet Laureate.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

2 July 1737: The Opposition paper The Craftsman published...

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2 July 1737

The Opposition paper The Craftsman published excerpts from Shakespeare 's King John which were designed to reflect obloquy on the conduct of George II .
Clark, Jonathan Charles Douglas. Samuel Johnson: Literature, religion and English cultural politics from Restoration to Romanticism. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
149

Late 1737 to spring 1738: A group of women calling themselves Shakespeare's...

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Late 1737 to spring 1738

A group of women calling themselves Shakespeare 's Ladies persuaded the two licensed playhouses in London to stage many of Shakespeare 's long-neglected plays.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
3: 679, 689

By February 1741: A monument was erected by subscription to...

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By February 1741

A monument was erected by subscription to the memory of Shakespeare in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
11 (1741): 105

1767: At auctions of copyright, Richardson's Clarissa...

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1767

At auctions of copyright, Richardson 's Clarissa was valued at £600, but Addison and Steele 's Spectator at £1,300, Shakespeare at £1,800, and Pope at £4,400.
Brewer, John. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997.
135

14 October 1769: Garrick's afterpiece The Jubilee opened at...

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14 October 1769

Garrick 's afterpiece The Jubilee opened at Drury Lane , where it enjoyed the record run of the century: ninety performances in one season.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
4: 1419

20 June 1787: Actor John Palmer briefly opened the first...

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20 June 1787

Actor John Palmer briefly opened the first new London theatre since 1732: the Royalty in Well Street.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
5: 911-12, 986

By 1 May 1789: John Boydell opened his Shakespeare Gallery,...

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By 1 May 1789

John Boydell opened his Shakespeare Gallery , an exhibition of British artists' renderings of scenes from Shakespeare .
Brewer, John. The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997.
246-7
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
59 (1789): 442-4, 632-3; 60 (1790): 1088-90

29 November 1790: Edmond Malone, who in 1778 had published...

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29 November 1790

Edmond Malone , who in 1778 had published the first serious attempt at a date order for Shakespeare's plays, followed that with his immensely learned edition of Shakespeare , which set the standards for later scholarship.
Martin, Peter. Edmond Malone, Shakespearean scholar. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
133

2 April 1796: Vortigern and Rowena, allegedly a newly-discovered...

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2 April 1796

Vortigern and Rowena, allegedly a newly-discovered tragedy by Shakespeare but actually written by William Henry Ireland , opened under Richard Brinsley Sheridan 's management at Drury Lane .
“William Henry Ireland and the Shakespeare Fabrications”. University of Delaware Library: Special Collections Department: Exhibitions and Publications: Special Collections Exhibitions 1995 - 2001: Forging a Collection: the Frank W. Tober Collection on Literary Forgery.

November 1802: Thomas Holcroft's "A Tale of Mystery", produced...

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November 1802

Thomas Holcroft 's "A Tale of Mystery", produced at Covent Garden , formally introduced melodrama to the English stage.
Emeljanow, Victor. Victorian Popular Dramatists. Twayne, 1987.
2-3

Texts

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