Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) the bed he bequeaths her as "the second best" to remind her of the best bed of their memories. The novel was dramatised for BBC radio in 1998 with Maggie Steed playing Hathaway. The Connie Willis short story "Winter's Tale," which combines factual information about Anne Hathaway with a fictitious Shakespeare identity theory, also characterises the nature of the relationship as loving and the bequeath of the second-best bed as romantically significant. Anne Hathaway appears in Neil Gaiman's comic book section , part of "The Sandman" series. She and Shakespeare share a tumultuous, yet affectionate, relationship. Gaiman's interpretation suggests that
Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) there is no reason to assume that this had not always been his intention. It is nearly certain that the respective families of the bride and groom had known one another. Three children were born to Hathaway and her husband: Susanna in 1583 and the twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585. Hamnet died at 11 years old during one of the frequent outbreaks of the bubonic plague and was buried in Stratford upon Avon on 11 August 1596. Apart from documents related to her marriage and the birth of her children, the only recorded reference to Hathaway in her lifetime