Life of William Shakespeare Life of William Shakespeare William Shakespeare was an actor, playwright, poet, and theatre entrepreneur in London during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. He was baptised on 26 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, in the Holy Trinity Church. At age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway with whom he had three children. He died in his home town of Stratford on 23 April 1616 at the age of 52. Though more is known about Shakespeare's life than those of most other Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, few personal biographical facts survive, which is unsurprising in the light of
Shakespeare authorship question and Spenser. This poem circulated very widely in manuscript and survives today in more than two dozen contemporary copies; several of these have a fuller, variant title "On Mr. William Shakespeare, he died in April 1616", which unambiguously specifies that the reference is to Shakespeare of Stratford. Shakespeare's are the most studied secular works in history. Contemporary comments and textual studies support the authorship of someone with an education, background, and life span consistent with that of William Shakespeare. There is no record that any contemporary of Shakespeare referred to him as a learned writer or scholar. Ben Jonson and