William Shakespeare
1564 - 1616

English poet and dramatist. His plays were performed rather than published so it is difficult to know the order they were written in. It seems likely that the Henry VI plays came first (late 1580s). The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors and Love's Labour's Lost are all thought to be 1595, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice were both printed in 1600, Othello (1604), King Lear seems to date from 1605, Macbeth from 1606, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest all probably 1611. The Sonnets were written in the mid-1590s but appeared only in 1609.

Shakespeare is seen as the greatest English dramatist of all time and his work has influenced generations of later artists of all sorts.