New Arrivals

David J. Gatward
499 Kč
David J. Gatward
499 Kč
David J. Gatward
499 Kč
Richard Gadd
499 Kč
Paulo Coelho
311 Kč

Bestsellers

shakes.cz
159 Kč
Vaclav Havel
311 Kč
Slavenka Drakulic
599 Kč
Peter Kuper, Franz Kafka, Kerstin Hasenpusch
429 Kč
Milan Kundera
377 Kč

Staff Picks

Margaret Atwood
319 Kč
Harvey Pekar, Paul Buhle (EDT), Ed Piskor (ILT)
549 Kč
Claudia Durastanti
424 Kč
Rutger Bregman
395 Kč
Coco Mellors
311 Kč

April Literary Birthdays


WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
April, 1564 - April 23, 1616

England's greatest poet and playwright was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, the son of a tradesman and Alderman of Stratford, John Shakespeare. He wrote approximately 38 plays and 154 sonnets, as well as a variety of other poems. Already a popular writer in his own lifetime, Shakespeare became increasingly celebrated after his death and his work adulated by numerous prominent cultural figures through the centuries. Shakespeare's works have been translated into every major living language, and his plays are continually performed all around the world. In addition, Shakespeare is the most quoted writer in the literature and history of the English-speaking world.

Some of his works:
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Hamlet
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
The Merchant of Venice
The Sonnets

Search for his books


Other Literary Birthdays

Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805)
French writer and insurgent Emile Zola (1840)
American writer Washington Irving (1783)
London-born animal behaviorist (chimps) and writer Jane Goodall (1934)
Vietnamese novelist and screenplay writer Marguerite Duras (1914)
Missouri-born novelist poet, dramatist, and performer Maya Angelou (1928)
British poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837)
English romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770)
Denver native and depression-era novelist John Fante (1911)
Annapolis (MD)-born novelist Barbara Kingsolver (1955)
French poet, essayist, and art critic Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (1821)
Massachusetts native, travel writer, and novelist Paul Theroux (1941)
Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906)
American writer Eudora Welty (1909)
Irish poet and 1995 Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney (1939)
American novelist (born New York) Henry James (1843)
French novelist, poet, political satirist, and 1921 Nobel Prize winner Anatole France (1844)
British novelist, poet, and short story writer Sir Kingsley Amis (1922)
Danish writer and traveller Karen Blixen (1885)
Wisconsin-born playwright and novelist Thornton Niven Wilder (1897)
English novelist Charlotte Bronte (1816)
English novelist and playwright Henry Fielding (1707)
Russian novelist, poet, scholar, translator, and butterfly collector Vladimir Nabokov (1899)
Brooklyn native (became Irish citizen 1967) and novelist J.P. Donleavy (1926)
English journalist, essayist, political tract writer, and novelist Daniel Defoe (1659)
English novelist Anthony Trollope (1815)
Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711)
NYC-born novelist and short-story writer Bernard Malamud (1914)
Alabama-born Harper Lee (1926)
British sci-fi and fantasy writer, creator of Discworld Terry Pratchett (1948)
American author Annie Dillard (1945)