Although generally considered the greatest dramatist of all time, William Shakespeare's life remains shrouded in mystery. Born in 1564 in the town of Stratford-on-Avon to a middle-class family, he is presumed to have received a grammar school education. However, by the time he was thirteen or fourteen, his family had become impoverished and he was forced to drop out of school in order to work full-time in his father's tannery. At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare …showed first 75 words of 340 total…

…showed last 75 words of 340 total…a fever after a night of heavy drinking with Ben Jonson. He died on April 23, 1616. Only about half of Shakespeare's plays had been published at the time of his death, and if not for two of his colleagues, John Heminge and Henry Condell, we would have only half of the Shakespearean Canon. Fortunately, the two actors gathered together all of The Bard's manuscripts shortly after his death and printed them in the First Folio edition.