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Detailed timeline by Terry Gray
Modern scholars don't know all the details of Shakespeare's life, but they have some facts and some educated guesses. The approximate or estimated dates are marked with an asterisk (*).
| Born | April 23, 1564* |
| Christened | April 26, 1564 |
| Married to Anne Hathaway | November 28, 1582 |
| First child, Susanna, christened | May 26, 1583 |
| Twins, Hamnet & Judith, christened | February 2, 1585 |
| Venus and Adonis published | 1593 |
| Lucrece published | 1594 |
| Globe Theatre opened | 1599 |
| Globe Theatre burned down | 1613 |
| Shakespeare died | April 23, 1616 |
| The First Folio published | 1623 |
Shakespeare sets his comedies and tragedies in far-off places, Italy being a favorite of his. Geographical details weren't important, and his plays contain several errors in geography. Nonetheless, it can be fun to hunt down the locations where he sets many of his plays. These maps are simple, but they show most of the settings for his plays. The map of Great Britain shows some of the important settings for his history plays.
Map of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea: small (15KB) big (52KB)
Map of Great Britain: small (15KB) big (44KB)
Shakespeare wrote or collaborated on about 38 plays, but modern scholars dispute the exact number. The First Folio contained 36 of them. Pericles appeared later, and many "complete" works include those 37 plays. Outside of English literature departments, those 37 plays represent the complete canon of Shakespeare's plays. Nonetheless, moderns scholars agree that Shakespeare collaborated with Fletcher in writing Two Noble Kinsmen, bringing the total to 38 plays. Some complete works now include Two Noble Kinsmen. Some scholars argue that Shakespeare also participated in writing Edward III, too.
The First Folio divided the plays into the categories: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. A few editors move a few plays into a fourth category: Romances. A few plays are difficult to categorize and depend on how you define "comedy," "tragedy," and so forth. The table below shows the most common grouping of the plays:
| Comedies | Histories | Tragedies |
|---|---|---|
| All's Well That Ends Well | King John | Antony & Cleopatra |
| As You Like It | King Richard II | Coriolanus |
| Comedy of Errors | King Henry IV, Part 1 | Hamlet |
| Cymbeline | King Henry IV, Part 2 | Julius Caesar |
| Love's Labour's Lost | King Henry V | King Lear |
| Measure for Measure | King Henry VI, Part 1 | Macbeth |
| Merchant of Venice | King Henry VI, Part 2 | Othello |
| Merry Wives of Windsor | King Henry VI, Part 3 | Romeo and Juliet |
| Midsummer Night's Dream | King Richard III | Timon of Athens |
| Much Ado About Nothing | King Henry VIII | Titus Andronicus |
| Pericles, Prince of Tyre | ||
| Taming of the Shrew | ||
| The Tempest | ||
| Troilus and Cressida | ||
| Twelfth Night | ||
| Two Gentlemen of Verona | ||
| Two Noble Kinsmen | ||
| Winter's Tale |
