Richard Shakespeare Richard Shakespeare Richard Shakespeare (1490 – before 10 February 1561) was a husbandman of Snitterfield, Warwickshire, north-northeast of Stratford-upon-Avon, the father of John Shakespeare and the grandfather of William Shakespeare. He was most likely born around the Rowington/Wroxall area, about to the north in Warwickshire. He was the son of John Shakespeare (1460–1521), and the grandson of Thomas Shakespeare (1430–1511), his mother was Joan Shakespeare. Sometime before 1529, he removed to Snitterfield, where he was a tenant farmer until his death on land owned by Robert Arden, the father of Mary Arden, who married John, the poet's father. Richard Shakespeare
The Plays of William Shakespeare "A Dictionary of the English Language", Warburton's publishers, Tonson et al., granted him permission to work on Shakespeare. In the "Proposal", Johnson describes the various problems with previous editions of Shakespeare and argues how a new edition, written by himself, would correct these problems. In particular, Johnson promised to "correct what is corrupt, and to explain what is obscure". He would accomplish this by relying on "a careful collation of all the oldest copies" and to read "the same story in the very book which Shakespeare consulted". Unlike other editors who "slight their predecessors", Johnson claimed that "all that is