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3. Shakespeare in Londonlocked

  • Stanley Wells

Abstract

‘Shakespeare in London’ describes Shakespeare’s professional life in London and what is known about his private life at that time. It considers how he worked and where his plays came from. Shakespeare borrowed the narrative material of almost all his plays from books, whether fictional, mythical, historical, or theatrical, but he turned this raw material into original drama. It also describes his poems that seem to be composed for his own pleasure; a collection of 154 of these sonnets were published in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe. Shakespeare’s writing career seems to have come to an end around the time that the Globe burnt down, in June 1613, but was this just a coincidence?

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