Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) It is widely attributed to Charles Dibdin (1748–1814) and may have been written for the Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Festival of 1769: Anne is depicted in fiction during the 19th century, when Shakespeare starts to become a figure in wider national and popular culture. Emma Severn's novel "Anne Hathaway, or, Shakespeare in Love" (1845) portrays an idealised romance and happy marriage in an idyllic rural Stratford. She also appears in William Black's 1884 novel "Judith Shakespeare" about her daughter, portrayed as a conventional dutiful wife and concerned parent with a wayward daughter. By the early 20th century a more negative image of
Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) Anne remembers their lovemaking as a form of "romance and drama", unlike the "prose" written on the best bed used by guests, "I hold him in the casket of my widow's head/ as he held me upon that next best bed". In Robert Nye's novel "Mrs Shakespeare: the Complete Works", which purports to be Anne's autobiographical reminiscences, Shakespeare buys the best bed with money given to him by the Earl of Southampton. When Anne comes to London, the couple use the bed for wild sexual adventures, in which they engage in role-playing fantasies based on his plays. He refers to