Life of William Shakespeare secure his family's position in Stratford. Shakespeare himself seems to have lived in rented accommodation while in London. According to John Aubrey, he travelled to Stratford to stay with his family for a period each year. Shakespeare grew rich enough to buy the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, which he acquired in 1597 for £60 from William Underhill. The Stratford chamberlain's accounts in 1598 record a sale of stone to the council from "Mr Shaxpere", which may have been related to remodelling work on the newly purchased house. The purchase was thrown into doubt when evidence emerged that Underhill,
The Plays of William Shakespeare a factor in the reception of the work. Instead, Johnson believed that the reader of Shakespeare was the true audience of the play. Furthermore, Johnson believed that later editors both misunderstood the historical context of Shakespeare and his plays, and underestimated the degree of textual corruption that the plays exhibit. He believed that this was because "The style of Shakespeare was in itself perplexed, ungrammatical, and obscure". To correct these problems, Johnson believed that the original works would need to be examined, and this became an issue in his "Proposal". Johnson also believed that an edition of Shakespeare could provide