Between the ages of 18-28, or 1582-92, there is very little known about legendary playwright Willaim Shakespeare. It is known that he was married at 18 to Anne Hathaway, who was 8 years his elder, because she was pregnant, and that he had two more children, but beyond that not much can be said about his life.
After Shakespeare's
children were born, he seemed to fade into
oblivion. Ten years later, he
appears on the scene of
London as a rather successful and already established
playwright, but nothing is known what Shakespeare did during the
previous decade. Some say he traveled the world,
particularly to
Italy, as that is where many of his plays are based and he seems to know the
landscape very well. Others say he had additional
schooling. Still others say he was a
family man. There are many
hypotheses over the
activities of Shakespeare over this
gap in his timeline, but the
bottom line is that very little is
known. Hence
The Lost Years of Shakespeare.