William Shakepeare's mother, Mary Arden Shakespeare, was from a well-to-do, well-connected family. His father, John Shakespeare, was a prosperous glove maker and local politician. William's exact birthdate is unknown, but he was baptized in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564, and tradition has assigned him a birthdate of April 23, which was also the day of his death and the feast day of Saint George, England's patron saint. Shakespeare attended the Stratford grammar school, where he studied Latin and perhaps some Greek. At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, who was with child. Altogether, William and Anne had three children, Susanna and the twins Hamnet and Judith. He may have worked for a while as a schoolteacher, for there are many references to teaching in his plays. By 1592, however, he was living in London and pursuing a life in the theater. Scholars have speculated that Shakespeare's marriage was unhappy, but he continued to provide for his family and to expand his holdings in Stratford while living in London. He retired to Stratford-upon-Avon at the end of his life.

By 1593, Shakespeare was a successful actor and playwright. His history plays Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3, and Richard III had established him as a significant force in London theater. In 1593, when an outbreak of the plague forced the closing of the theaters, Shakespeare turned to narrative poetry, producing Venus and Adonis followed by The Rape of Lucrece, both dedicated to a patron, the Earl of Southampton. When the theaters reopened, Shakespeare plunged back into his primary vocation, writing thirty-seven plays in less than twenty years, including The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, All's Well That Ends Well, Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Cūsar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest.

Shakespeare's final play, Henry VIII, was performed in London in 1613. At that time he was probably living again in Stratford in a large house called New Place that he had bought in 1597. When he died in 1616, survived by his wife and his two daughters, Shakespeare was a wealthy man. He was buried in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, where his bones rest to this day. The stone over his grave reads: "Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare, / To digg the dust enclosed heare! / Blest be the man that spares thes stones, / And curst be he that moves my bones."