Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) Anne Hathaway (1556 – 6 August 1623) was the wife of William Shakespeare, the English poet, playwright and actor. They were married in 1582, when he was 18 and she was 26 years old. She outlived her husband by seven years. Very little is known about her beyond a few references in legal documents, but her personality and relationship to Shakespeare have been the subject of much speculation by many historians and creative writers. Hathaway is believed to have grown up in Shottery, a village just to the west of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. She is
Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) Hathaway on the day of her husband's funeral. Avril Rowland's "Mrs Shakespeare" (2005) depicts Anne as a multi-tasking "superwoman" who runs the home efficiently while also writing her husband's plays in a businesslike partnership with him as her promoter/performer. The romantic comedy film "Shakespeare in Love" provides an example of the negative view, depicting the marriage as a cold and loveless bond that Shakespeare must escape to find love in London. The same situation occurs in the alternate-history novel "Ruled Britannia" (2002), in which Shakespeare is finally granted a divorce from Hathaway to marry his new girlfriend after he helps