Some of them can be filled in with reasonable confidence, but not certainty. There are several years-usually referred to as “the lost years”-in which there’s no documentary evidence of where he lived or what he was doing. We have a half-dozen odd, scribbled signatures which he may or may not have scrawled himself, and one passage of the collaboratively written Sir Thomas More that may-emphasis on may-be written in his hand.

If he possessed a library, it is no longer extant.

If he kept a journal-a rare practice in his day-it has not survived. There’s quite a bit we don’t know about Shakespeare. In 1602, a list of people whose coats of arms were perhaps too generously bestowed was drawn up by the York Herald, and the list included a sketch of the Shakespeare coat of arms attributed to “Shakespear ye Player by Garter.” Shakespeare of Stratford’s last will and testament also includes a bequest to his partners and fellow actors at the Globe. We know the William Shakespeare of Stratford is the same William Shakespeare of the theater in London because in 1596 he renewed his father’s previously unsuccessful application for a coat of arms and the title of gentleman, and it was granted sometime in the next couple of years. At some point, William made his way to London, where he became an actor and shareholder in the Globe Theatre. Their first child was a daughter, Susanna they then had twins, Hamnet (who died young) and Judith. William married a woman named Anne Hathaway who was pregnant on their wedding day in November 1585, a common occurrence at the time. His father, John, was a leatherworker who held several municipal offices in their hometown, including burgess, alderman, and high bailiff. He was born in April of 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. Here are some things we know about William Shakespeare.

Work by william shakespeare