Plays of Mr. William Shakespeare As Re-Written or Re-Arranged by His Successors of the Restoration Period. As Presented at the Dukes Theatre and Elsewhere circa 1664-1669. The Bankside-Restoration Shakespeare. Edited by Appleton Morgan and Willis Vickery

Most of what is known about William Shakespeare's life derives either from legal records or from spurious anecdotes. (Differing accounts of one eight-year period list his occupation as soldier, stable-boy, schoolmaster, and thief). Regardless of how he began, he ended as a playwright "not of an age, but for all time"; his influence is as strongly felt today as it was four centuries ago.