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 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 Emily Eden
She was educated at home by her mother, a tutor, and governesses. Under her mother's instruction, she read Boswell's Life of Johnson, the Mémoires du Cardinal de Retz, Shakespeare , and knew a...
Education Margaret Drabble
MD has recalled how her father, newly demobbed after his wartime army service, patiently taught me to read from a primer called The Radiant Way. Later, Mary McCarthy 's The Group and Doris Lessing
Education Melesina Trench
After the deaths of her parents Melesina Chenevix was committed to the care of a governess who had a determination to rule by rigour. . . . The fear and distaste I had for her...
Education Frances Reynolds
FR denied that she knew Latin, yet she used Latin tags in her letters. As an adult she worked persistently at self-education. Her commonplace-book contains her reading notes on Plato , Aristotle , Pliny ,...
Education Melesina Trench
Her successive years with different guardians account for the apparent inconsistency in her comments about her education. In maturity she named her favourite youthful reading as Shakespeare , Molière , and Sterne .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Yet she...
Education Brigid Brophy
BB 's education (disrupted by the second war) included attending a state school (coeducational) and private schools both boys', girls', and mixed-sex. She was intellectually precocious at every stage. As a little girl at the...
Education Harriette Wilson
HW 's story of her education is one of tyranny and resistance. Her worst beating from her father was incurred for obstinacy. Her elder sister Jane (called Diana in her memoirs) was supposed to teach...
Education George Eliot
Her devotion to John Bunyan 's Pilgrim's Progress remained unchanged during this period. She also read heavyweight works of theology, Hannah More 's letters, and a life of William Wilberforce . By late 1838, however...
Education Susan Hill
Some years later she had a flirtation with the scholarly life that led her to register for a degree in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham . She abandoned this degree after a term...
Education Anne Grant
Of her childhood, AG wrote that she developed early powers of imagination and memory, but received little attention: no one fondled or caressed me . . . I did not till the sixth year of...
Education Lady Cynthia Asquith
Her education under her next governess, Squidge (an Austrian called Miss Fraulein by everyone but Cynthia), was a quite different matter: Beauman writes that Squidge had a heart but no mind. Nevertheless, by sixteen Cynthia...
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 Sarah Josepha Hale
Sarah Josepha Buell (later SJH ) was taught at home by her mother, with her father and her brother Horatio (then a law student) joining in for such higher branches of learning as writing, Latin...
Education Louisa Baldwin
Following her marriage, she studied German, French, and Italian, as well as the works of Shakespeare and the novels of George Eliot .
Taylor, Ina. Victorian Sisters. Adler and Adler, 1987.
114-15, 127

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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