William Shakespeare in 100 Facts

Zoe Bramley

• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781445656250
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Renaissance History
• Index: History

William Shakespeare is the world's best-loved playwright. His work is performed all over the globe and his life still tantalises us with its mysteries. The man who created classics such as Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth lived in the most turbulent yet thrilling era of English history. Shakespeare witnessed the flowering of English Renaissance drama and the construction of iconic playhouses such as The Globe. He also lived through the type of political and religious tensions which could see traitors executed on another type of public stage – the hangman's scaffold. William Shakespeare in 100 Facts guides us through the lesser-known stories surrounding the 'Sweet Swan of Avon'. Zoe Bramley invites us to re-examine what we know about Shakespeare, uncovering details from his lifetime and legacy and organising them into easy-to-read, bitesize facts. Be prepared to have myths busted and quirky facts revealed, from the name of his first patron's cat to how they say 'to be or not to be' in Klingon.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Introduction
• 1. We Know Nothing about William Shakespeare
• 2. William Shakespeare Was Born on St George’s Day
• 3. He Nearly Died of the Plague
• 4. The Next-Door Neighbour Was a Man Called George Badger
• 5. His Father Was a Catholic Who Hid Illegal Tracts in the Rafters of the Family Home
• 6. His Mother Came from a Family Named After the Local Forest
• 7. His Least Favourite Subjects at School Were Latin and Greek
• 8. He Spent His Gap Year as a Private Tutor. Or an Actor. Or Was it a Pirate?
• 9. He Enjoyed Prowling Around the Countryside Looking for Deer (Allegedly)
• 10. He Once Got Drunk Beneath a Tree
• 11. He Married Anne Hathaway but His Heart Was Set on a Different Anne
• 12. The Chair in Which He Courted Anne Hathaway Can Still Be Seen
• 13. If it Hadn’t Been for a Fatal Brawl in 1587 We May Never Have Heard of William Shakespeare
• 14. Shakespeare Was No ‘University Wit’
• 15. He Was an ‘Upstart Crow’ and a ‘Jack of All Trades’
• 16. William Shakespeare is an Anagram of ‘I Am a Weakish Speller’
• 17. The Works of Shakespeare Were Written by Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon and Elizabeth I (Not!)
• 18. The Man Who Paid for Venus and Adonis and The Rape Of Lucrece Had a Cat Named Trixie
• 19. He Had an Affair with a Brothel Keeper and a ‘Lovely Boy’
• 20. Shakespeare Wanted to Keep His Sonnets Private
• 21. Shakespeare Was a Tax Evader
• 22. Romeo and Juliet Was the First Play about Romantic Love
• 23. The First Person to Play Juliet Was a Boy
• 24. Shakespeare Helped to Steal a Theatre
• 25. Julius Caesar Opened the Globe Playhouse
• 26. Henry VIII Closed the Globe Playhouse
• 27. Shakespeare Had a Busy Schedule
• 28. He Wrote Thousands of Words but Spoke Only a Few of Them
• 29. He Wrote Slapstick Comedy for the Groundlings and Highbrow Poetry for the Lords
• 30. Falstaff Was So Popular that Shakespeare Fired Him
• 31. He Once Called Himself ‘William the Conqueror’
• 32. He Was Quite Keen on Cross-Dressing
• 33. The Obscure Play Edward III Contains a Passage Written by Shakespeare
• 34. Shakespeare Was the Love Child of Elizabeth I – Sort Of
• 35. A Midsummer Night’s Dream Was Written for a Wedding
• 36. Shakespeare Had His Haters
• 37. The Bloodiest Play in the Canon Is Titus Andronicus in Which Fourteen Characters Die Horribly
• 38. The Merchant of Venice Was an Audacious Rebuttal to Contemporary Prejudice Against Jews
• 39. Falstaff Was Elizabeth I’s Favourite Shakespearean Character
• 40. The Merry Wives of Windsor Is the Only Shakespeare Play in a Contemporary English Setting
• 41. Despite Writing Around Thirty-Seven Plays He Only Came Up with Four Original Plotlines
• 42. The Shakespeare Canon Contains about 18,000 Words …
• 43. Shakespeare Thought Henry VII Was Boring
• 44. The War of the Poets Was His Very Own War of the Roses
• 45. There Are Thirteen Suicides in Shakespeare – Unlucky for Some
• 46. There Is Only One Surviving Letter to Shakespeare – And He May Not Even Have Seen It
• 47. He Was ‘Not Without Mustard’
• 48. King John is Our Least Favourite Shakespeare Play
• 49. Hamlet Is the Most Performed Shakespeare Play Ever
• 50. Hamlet Was all About Hamnet
• 51. Shakespeare Paid Tribute to His Murdered Colleague in As You Like It
• 52. Richard II Helped Execute the Earl of Essex
• 53. The First Performance of The Comedy of Errors Was a Riot
• 54. He Was a Groom of the Chamber to James I
• 55. Shakespeare Took As You Like It to Wiltshire
• 56. The Reign of James I Was a Real Tragedy
• 57. He Was One of the First Englishmen to Promote the Idea of a United Kingdom
• 58. When Writing King Lear, Shakespeare Was Inspired by a Man Called Bryan
• 59. He Got the Idea for the Witches in Macbeth from Three Boys in Oxford
• 60. It is Unlucky to Say ‘Macbeth’
• 61. Shakespeare Knew Guy Fawkes
• 62. There Are Numerous Portraits of Shakespeare but We Still Don’t Know What He Looked Like
• 63. He Was the Victim of Identity Theft
• 64. He Acted as Cupid in a Real-Life Case of Two Star-Cross’d Lovers
• 65. The Character Emilia in Othello Is Based on His Mistress
• 66. William Was Not the Only Shakespeare Making His Living from London Theatre
• 67. Shakespeare Was a Solitary Writer
• 68. The Plays All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and The Winter’s Tale Are Real Problems
• 69. Shakespeare’s Wisest Characters Were Fools
• 70. Despite Setting Most of His Plays in Foreign Countries His Geography Was Terrible (His History Was Too)
• 71. He Had an Illegitimate Son Called William Who Also Became a Playwright
• 72. He Helped to Write the Bible
• 73. Hamlet Was Performed in 1607 – in a Ship off the Coast of Africa
• 74. Apart from His Signatures Only One Example of His Handwriting Still Exists
• 75. His Daughter Judith Lived in a Cage
• 76. His Daughter Susannah Had Venereal Disease
• 77. He Once Lived in a Monastery
• 78. If You Ever Asked Shakespeare Out for a Drink He Would Pretend to Have Tummy Ache
• 79. He Annoyed a Grumpy Vicar
• 80. He Lost His Seal Ring in the Garden
• 81. Shakespeare Was Always Suing His Neighbours
• 82. Shakespeare Wrote Masques, but Not for Court
• 83. He Based Prospero on Himself
• 84. In 1616 He Had the Worst Birthday Present Ever – He Died
• 85. Anyone Who Moves His Bones Will Be Cursed Forever
• 86. The Bust of Shakespeare in Holy Trinity Church Originally Had Him Holding a Bag of Grain Rather than a Quill
• 87. He Was a Mean Curmudgeon Who Ignored His Wife and Left Her the ‘Second-Best Bed’ in His Will
• 88. He Didn’t Publish His Plays Himself – He Left That to His Friends
• 89. The First Folio is Always Being Stolen
• 90. Ben Jonson Was His Most Critical Friend
• 91. The Longest Word in Shakespeare Is ‘Honorificabilitundinitatibus’
• 92. The King’s Men’s Careers Ended in Arrest
• 93. The First Female Actor to Perform In a Shakespeare Play Was Margaret Hughes in 1660
• 94. The Role of Othello Was First Played by a Black Actor in 1833
• 95. Shakespeare Has Been Translated into Eighty Languages, Including Klingon and Esperanto
• 96. His Birthplace Was Saved for the Nation by Charles Dickens
• 97. If It Wasn’t for Shakespeare There Would Be No Starlings in New York
• 98. Shakespeare Gave Us a Tree on Primrose Hill
• 99. He Was Not for an Age but for All Time
• 100. If He Was Still Around Today He Would Be Writing Radio Plays