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William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor, born in Stratford-upon-Avon to a glovemaker and educated no further than the grammar school there. In London he became a sharer — a part-owner — in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and in the Globe theatre, which is what made him money; the plays were the company's stock rather than literature, and he took no part in printing them. Two fellow actors collected thirty-six of them in the First Folio of 1623, seven years after his death, and eighteen plays exist only because they did. He also wrote 154 sonnets.