William Shakespeare’s life and his achievements

William Shakespeare (. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616)[a] was an English playwright, poet, and actor,
widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He
is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant
works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems,
and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every
major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.[7] They also
continue to be studied and reinterpreted.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he

married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith.
Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and
part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men.
At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later.
Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation
about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and whether the
works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613.[11][12][d] His early plays were
primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best work produced in these
genres. Until about 1608, he wrote mainly tragedies, among them Hamlet, Romeo and
Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English
language.[2][3][4] In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and
collaborated with other playwrights.

What is the First Folio?

The first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, the First Folio, was collated and published in
1623, seven years after the playwright’s death. Of the 36 plays in the First Folio, 18 had not yet been
printed at all. It is this fact that makes the First Folio so important; without it, many of Shakespeare’s
plays, including Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Macbeth, Julius Caesarand The Tempest,
might never have survived.

The text was collated by two of Shakespeare's fellow actors and friends, John Heminge and Henry
Condell, who edited it and supervised the printing. They divided the plays into comedies, tragedies
and histories, an editorial decision that has come to shape our idea of the Shakespearean canon.

What are the quartos?

Shakespeare’s plays began to be printed in 1594, probably with his tragedy Titus Andronicus. This
appeared as a small, cheap pamphlet called a quarto because of the way it was printed. 18 of
Shakespeare’s plays had appeared in quarto editions by the time of his death in 1616. Another three
plays were printed in quarto before 1642.

As only one literary manuscript fragment in Shakespeare’s hand survives, the earliest printed

editions are our only source for what he actually wrote. The quarto editions are the texts closest to
Shakespeare’s time. Some are thought to preserve either his working drafts (his foul papers) or his
fair copies. Others are thought to record versions remembered by actors who performed the plays,
providing information about staging practices in Shakespeare’s day.