Abstract

Shakespeare’s low profile in the records of Stratford-upon-Avon can be attributed to his choice of an unconventional career as a London playwright and theatrical shareholder. Introducing both “clusters” of interconnected evidence and “cognates” from among his Stratford contemporaries, this essay suggests that Shakespeare’s wife had a more conventional life and that her business activities can be understood by analogy with those of a neighbor, Elizabeth Quiney. Evidence shows that Quiney managed a household and many rental properties; took in lodgers; was a maltster, mercer, grocer, vintner, and civic hostess; and managed money through extensive lending and borrowing. The only surviving letter to Shakespeare, written by her husband Richard Quiney, requests a loan of 30 pounds; if, as seems likely, the letter was never delivered, this may have been because Elizabeth Quiney found an alternative source for the required funds. Scattered evidence suggests that Anne Shakespeare, too, managed a household (New Place) and rental properties (a tract in Stratford Old Town, a cottage in Chapel Lane, the Birthplace);took in lodgers (Thomas Greene); and was a maltster (and grain hoarder), brewer, civic hostess (to a visiting preacher), and money manager (borrowing from the shepherd Thomas Whittington). The economic success of the aspirational Shakespeares was undoubtedly due to Anne’s work as well as that of her husband.

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