Shakespeare Fun Facts

In honor of Talk like Shakespeare Day, we have written a few fun facts about the famous English playwright William Shakespeare.

1. The believed date for his birthday and death are both April 23.
2. His gravestone has a curse on anyone who wants to disturb his grave.
3. He is the world’s best-selling playwright with over 4 billion copies sold.
4. In addition to his plays, he also wrote poems, most of which are sonnets.
5. He is the third most translated author in history, behind Agatha Christie and Jules Verne.
6. None of his original manuscripts remain, which brings us to the next Shakespeare fun fact:
7. The First Folio, and thus the scripts for his plays, exist only due to the actors from his company.
8. Shakespeare added 1700 words to the English language. This list includes the words bedroom, critic, manager, fashionable, and traditional.
9. 20,000 pieces of music have links to his plays, including three Verdi operas.
10. At age 18, he married Anne Hathaway who was 26.
11. There are no current direct descendants from Shakespeare but there are many from his sister Joan.
12. Only one of his seven siblings outlived him.
13. His father John Shakespeare was granted a coat of arms, which makes a bit of a pun with the spear part of Shakespeare.