The first definite mention of William Shakespeare is in 1592
as a London actor and playwright
in Robert Greene’s pamphlet A Groatsworth of Wit
mocking Shakespeare as
“an upstart crow,
beautified with our feathers,
that with his ‘tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide’,
supposes that he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse
as the best of you,
and being an absolute Johannes fac totum
is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.”
he next year… 1593
Shakespeare published a long poem
Venus and Adonis
The first quarto editions of his early plays
appeare in 1594
For more the next two decades
Shakespeare had multiple roles in London theater
as actor, playwright, and later
as a business partner in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men
(renamed the King’s Men in 1603)
Shakespeare’s sonnets were first published in a 1609
with the title: SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. Never before Imprinted.
The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It
The Taming of the Shrew, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale
King John, Richard II, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, Henry VI Part 1, Henry VI Part 2, Henry VI Part 3, Richard III, Henry VIII
Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline
