History Main / ShakespeareInFiction

* ''No Bed For Bacon'', a humorous novel that may have inspired ''ShakespeareInLove'', takes a HistoricalHilarity approach to the period. It makes reference to the authorship controversy by inverting it. Rather than Bacon writing Shakespeare's plays, Shakespeare helps write Bacon's essays in addition to his play-writing work.

* He appeared as a sentient wax figure in WesternAnimation/GravityFalls along with other wax figures based on historical and literary characters.

* ''Series/UpstartCrow'', a comedy series written by Creator/BenElton and starring Creator/DavidMitchell as Shakespeare, revolves around his early career before he really hits it off. Complete with numerous ItWillNeverCatchOn moments, adventures curiously similar to his later works which end up inspiring him in a completely different direction, and an inversion of the UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheory that someone else wrote Shakespeare's plays.

* Shakespeare's marriage was of at best questionable happiness (because he only left his wife his "second best bed" in his will, and because he spent most of his life in London while she was in Stratford-upon-Avon). His wife gave birth less than nine months after their marriage, so it's often presented as a ShotgunWedding. [[JustifyingEdit It's worth mentioning that Shakespeare scholars dispute both these factoids]]: apparently the second-best bed was the bed a couple would typically sleep in (the best was kept for guests - like the "company dinner service") and under the laws of the time, the wife would automatically inherit a large share of the estate. As for the marriage, Shakespeare and his wife had been formally engaged for a number of months before the marriage ceremony and at the time, engaged couples were seen as married in all but name. (This crops up as an important plot point in ''Theatre/MeasureForMeasure''.)

* ''Series/UpstartCrow'', a comedy series written by Creator/BenElton and starring Creator/DavidMitchell as Shakespeare, revolves around his early career before he really hits it off. Complete with numerous ItWillNeverCatchOn moments, adventures curiously similar to his later works which end up inspiring him in a completely different direction, and an inversion of the ConspiracyTheory that someone else wrote Shakespeare's plays.

** In the Fourth Doctor story [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath "City of Death"]], the Doctor is shown reading a manuscript of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' (which he hand-wrote for Will, who had sprained his wrist writing sonnets) and claiming that he helped compose the famous "To be or not to be" speech. The book ''The Shakespeare Notebook'' contains the full text of this, complete with the Doctor's rather condescending ConstructiveCriticism.

** Shakespeare has also appeared several times in the Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse, including the AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho audio ''The Kingmaker'' (in which [[spoiler: Richard III writes the plays, while Shakespeare dies at Bosworth Field]]) and the Literature/DoctorWhoMissingAdventures novel ''Empire of Glass'' (which also features Marlowe).
** One ''Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures'' novel has the Doctor mention that he "loved Shakespeare", get embarrassed, and correct that to "loves Shakespeare" (connoting he's just a fan of Shakespeare's work instead), then recite Hamlet's "[[BlatantLies man delights not me]]" speech [[NoSocialSkills as a way of changing the topic]].
** The ''Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures'' novel ''Theatre of War'' has a group of archaeologists uncover a theatre whose archive includes several famous lost plays, including ''Love's Labour's Won'' (though we don't get any details, because everybody's more interested in a lost masterpiece from the 23rd century).
** He doesn't appear outside of a cameo in the [[Literature/DoctorWhoMissingAdventures Missing Adventure]] ''Managra'', but he's an important background figure. The action itself revolves around a jealous, much less talented rival who crafts terrible plagiarised versions of Shakespeare's plays, which somehow manages to attract the attention of an EldritchAbomination (or what seems to be one, anyway).
** A ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' comic strip, "A Groatsworth of Wit" (by Gareth Roberts, who also wrote "The Shakespeare Code") has the Elizabethan playwright Robert Greene (a colleague of Shakespeare, who wrote a pamphlet attacking his plays) travel to the 21st century, where he's horrified to learn that the upstart actor he was so disparaging of is thought of as the greatest playwright of the age, whereas he's just barely remembered as the guy who said ItWillNeverCatchOn.
** ''The Shakespeare Notebooks'' purports to be a recently discovered notebook in which Shakespeare collected ''all'' his encounters with the Doctor. It also contains Doctorised versions of his plays and sonnets (such as an 'early draft' of a scene from ''Theatre/{{Cymbeline}}'' with a [[TheyLookLikeUsNow truly incredible twist about Imogen]]), although whether they are based on 'real' adventures is extremely ambiguous.
** The ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' drama ''Time of the Daleks'' features a woman who invents a time machine in order to go back and see Shakespeare's plays when they were first performed. She manages to screw up the timeline so that the plays were never written. [[spoiler: The character credited as "Kitchen Boy" is actually a very young William Shakespeare.]] The short story ''Apocrypha Bipedium'' set shortly after [[spoiler: has the young Shakespeare read ''The Complete Works of Shakespeare''.]]
** The book ''Short Trips: Past Tense'' contains a story where the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane end up helping Christopher Marlowe fake his own death and become William Shakespeare. The Doctor gives him a copy of ''The Complete Works of Shakespeare'' (which he'd used as a PocketProtector) and [[StableTimeLoop tells him only to read it 'when he gets stuck']].

* In the ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' TimeTravel special for the Millennium, ''Blackadder Back And Forth'', Edmund beats up Shakespeare in revenge for 400 years of schoolchildren who have to put up with his plays. And for being indirectly responsible for "[[Creator/KennethBranagh Ken Branagh's]] endless, uncut, four-hour version of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''".

:: After getting back to 1999, Edmund discovers that this messed up history, making Shakespeare give up writing and be recognized as the inventor of the ballpoint pen (which Edmund left behind by accident), so he has to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong go back and redo his visit]], being much nicer to Will that time around.

* The final book of The39Clues, ''Into The Gauntlet'' deals with him -- which means he's a Cahill from [[spoiler: Mardigals branch.]]

* In the ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' TimeTravel special for the Millennium, ''Blackadder Back And Forth'', Edmund beats up Shakespeare in revenge for 400 years of schoolchildren who have to put up with his plays. And for being indirectly responsible for "[[KennethBranagh Ken Branagh's]] endless, uncut, four-hour version of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''".

* Shakespeare knew some Jews, or a Jew, which is why ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice'' was FairForItsDay. Sometimes the Jew in question is Rodrigo Lopez, who was a physician to Queen Elizabeth until he was convicted of treason.

* Shakespeare in ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'' is an office worker who writes ''Literature/HarryPotter'' SelfInsertFic in his spare time. His office mates include Mercutio, a SmallNameBigEgo; and Ophelia, who has a crush on him but doesn't quite get his interests.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', he makes a deal with Dream--he's given writing ability, and in return Dream will get two plays from him (which end up being ''Theatre/TheTempest'' and ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream''). Hamnet dies after being captivated by the real world version of Titania, and it's implied that this leads to ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''. (And Shakespeare's ability to write a death that made the audience cry). It's hinted that ''The Tempest'' is a bit of vanity on Dream's part; "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," etc. Prospero has a lot in common with Morpheus...
** More specifically, Dream wanted ''The Tempest'' to end the way it did because, ''unlike'' Prospero, he will never be able to abandon magic and leave his own "island".

** FridgeBrilliance: Shakespeare spelled his name eleven different ways when he was alive. There wasn't really any standardization of spelling at the time.

* ''Film/ShakespeareInLove'', obviously. The entire movie is about real-world events that inspired his play. Some examples of this include:
** Marlowe's death looks like it's important. Shakespeare claims to be Marlowe at a ball where he gets between Lady Viola and her fiancé, so he later ends up thinking that the fiancé had Marlowe killed. It turns out to be a RedHerring; when Shakespeare shows up at Marlowe's funeral, [[AttendingYourOwnFuneral the fiancé's reaction]] inspires the scene with Banquo's ghost in ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}''.
** Lady Viola (who dresses as a boy in order to be able to act) is the inspiration for the character of the same name in ''Theatre/TwelfthNight''. She may also be the beautiful young man of the Sonnets.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov wrote a very short story called "The Immortal Bard" about a physicist who uses a time machine to bring Shakespeare to the present. He relates this to an English professor at a faculty mixer, who, it turns out, [[spoiler: had Shakespeare in his class on Shakespeare -- and flunked him.]]

* ''Ink and Steel'' and ''Hell and Earth'' by Creator/ElizabethBear are urban fantasy novels with Shakespeare and Marlowe as protagonists. They start with Marlowe's (apparent) death, and much is made of the ([[ShownTheirWork very real]]) Marlowe references in ''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt''. Interestingly, Hamnet's death in these books is ''also'' the Puck's fault--this may be a ShoutOut to ''[[ComicBook/TheSandman Sandman]]''.

* ''Ink and Steel'' and ''Hell and Earth'' by Elizabeth Bear are urban fantasy novels with Shakespeare and Marlowe as protagonists. They start with Marlowe's (apparent) death, and much is made of the ([[ShownTheirWork very real]]) Marlowe references in ''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt''. Interestingly, Hamnet's death in these books is ''also'' the Puck's fault--this may be a ShoutOut to ''[[ComicBook/TheSandman Sandman]]''.

* In ''[[ComicBook/BlakeAndMortimer The Testament of William S.]]'', Shakespeare is a posthumous character. The story is set in 1958 and is an investigation about the mystery surrounding Shakespeare's real authorship of his works. [[soiler: It turns out that William Shakespeare is actually the collective pen-name of two friends, an English peasant named William Shake (who became the official face of their duo) and an Italian aristocrat named Guillermo Da Spiri. Since his family forbade him to befriend this kind of commoners, Da Spiri couldn't use his real name to sign their plays, thus the pen-name "William Shake-Speare" ("Guillermo" being the Italian equivalent of "William". Ir's also revealed that "Shakespeare" simulated his death in 1616 and fled England with his friend Da Spiri, living in Italy under a fake identity for a couple of decades..]]

** Rimmer has a collection of books he treasures, and among them ''The Complete Works'' of the bard. Unfortunately, he hasn't read any of them. When asked to quote something, he cites the great monologue that starts with "NOW" something-something-something...

* In ''[[ComicBook/BlakeAndMortimer The Testament of William S.]]'', Shakespeare is a fictional character. The story is set in 1958 and is an investigation about the mystery surrounding Shakespeare's real authorship of his works. [[soiler: It turns out that William Shakespeare is actually the collective pen-name of two friends, an English peasant named William Shake (who became the official face of their duo) and an Italian aristocrat named Guillermo Da Spiri. Since his family forbade him to befriend this kind of commoners, Da Spiri couldn't use his real name to sign their plays, thus the pen-name "William Shake-Speare" ("Guillermo" being the Italian equivalent of "William". Ir's also revealed that "Shakespeare" simulated his death in 1616 and fled England with his friend Da Spiri, living in Italy under a fake identity for a couple of decades..]]

Most of the fiction about Shakespeare has him experiencing things that mirror his writing, with the implication that they served as inspiration. Specifically, often many of these things are portrayed as true:

* "[[http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=story&id=17973 We Haven't Got There Yet]]" by Creator/HarryTurtledove is a short story in which Shakespeare attends a performance of ''RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead'' [[spoiler:performed by an involuntarily time-traveling acting troupe from 2066.]]

* Shakespeare in ''IrregularWebcomic'' is an office worker who writes ''Literature/HarryPotter'' SelfInsertFic in his spare time. His office mates include Mercutio, a SmallNameBigEgo; and Ophelia, who has a crush on him but doesn't quite get his interests.

* ''The Shakespeare Stealer'', ''Shakespeare's Scribe'', and ''Shakespeare's Spy'', by Gary L. Blackwood, are a trilogy about a boy who is initially hired to transcribe ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' before it is legally published. The second book revolves around the writing of ''Love's Labour's Won'', which in this version turns out to be a working title for ''Theatre/AllsWellThatEndsWell''.

* ''Anime/RomeoXJuliet'' has William de Farnese alias Willy, a playwright who lets the Capulets take shelter in his theater. He's a BunnyEarsLawyer who is always late for work and seems not to take things seriously, but turns out to be SmarterThanTheyLook (i.e., he is perfectly aware of Juliet's secret even from the start.)

* In the ''Series/TwilightZone'' episode "The Bard", a tv writer uses black magic to conjure Shakespeare to the present to write a tv movie. He does, but becomes so pissed off at ExecutiveMeddling and the demands of the leading actor (Burt Reynolds as an {{Expy}} of MarlonBrando), he storms out.
* In the ''Fantasy Island'' segment "Room and Bard", an aspiring actress wants to give a performance "worthy of Shakespeare himself." She travels back to Elizabethan England and helps Shakespeare out of a jam with her acting ability.

* ''The Shakespeare Stealer'', ''Shakespeare's Scribe'', and ''Shakespeare's Spy'', by Gary L. Blackwood, are a trilogy about a boy who is initially hired to transcribe ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' before it is legally published. The second book revolves around the writing of ''Love's Labour's Won'', which in this version turns out to be a working title for ''AllsWellThatEndsWell''.