Two of Shakespeare’s friends, actors from the King’s Men, collected together 36 of Shakespeare’s plays and had them published in a leather-bound folio. The First Folio was printed in November 1623 and sold for 1 pound.
Throughout the centuries since Shakespeare’s death his plays have been regularly performed. John Garrick, who lived in the eighteenth century, started a “Shakespeare Jubilee” in Stratford-upon-Avon that is still held today.
Another Globe Theatre has been built on the same site as Shakespeare’s old one on the banks of the River Thames in London. It opened in 1997 and there is a summer season of Shakespeare’s plays held there every year. It also contains the world’s biggest permanent exhibition about Shakespeare.
The planet Uranus has 20 moons and 15 of them are named after characters from Shakespeare’s plays.
Everyone will have heard of a character or a line from Shakespeare. Hamlet is one of the most famous characters ever created. Perhaps you have seen a Shakespeare play or a film of his plays? In 2009, theatre groups across New Zealand performed as many of Shakespeare’s plays as possible throughout the year, to celebrate 400 years since the publication of his sonnets.
The playwright Ben Jonson wrote of Shakespeare that: “He was not of an age, but for all time.”
These facts about Shakespeare are from this book:
William Shakespeare and his dramatic acts by Andrew Donkin
If you want to know more about Shakespeare, then check out these books too:
What’s so special about Shakespeare? by Michael Rosen
Shakespeare: his work & his world by Michael Rosen
William Shakespeare: The Master Playwright by Haydn Middleton
William Shakespeare: the extraordinary life of the most successful writer of all time by Andrew Gurr
William Shakespeare by Peter Hicks
The world of Shakespeare by Mistress Anna Claybourne and Mistress Rebecca Treays