The Flower Portrait is one of the most famous paintings of Shakespeare, but it’s now believed to be a 19th-century forgery
BRIDGEMAN IMAGES X1, SARAH J COLEMAN / CENTRAL ILLUSTRATION AGENCY
For a man whose works have F been translated into more than 80 languages, including Klingon and Esperanto, we know remarkably little about England’s most famous playwright. Even his birth, on or around 23 April 1564, is unconfirmed – a proposed date based on an entry in a parish register, which lists the baptism of “Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakespere” (William, son of John Shakespeare) on 26 April 1564.