Joan Shakespeare (married name Joan Hart; baptised 15 April 1569 – buried 4 November 1646) was the sister of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

. She is the only member of the family whose known descendants continue down to the present day.

Life

Joan was Shakespeare's younger sister. She married a

hatter Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter. Historically, milliners, typically women shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of g ...

named William Hart with whom she had four children, William (1600–1639), Mary (1603–1606), Thomas (1605–1661), and Michael (1608–1618). Little is known about Joan's husband, William, apart from the fact that he was sued for debt in 1600 and 1601. He died in April 1616, and was buried 17 April, a week before William Shakespeare died. In his will her brother left her a legacy of £20, some clothing and the right to live in the western part of the double family house on Henley Street in Stratford for a nominal yearly rent of one shilling. She continued to reside there for the remainder of her life, dying at the age of 77. Her son William never married. Her other descendants via Thomas lived in Stratford until 1806. Thomas inherited the Henley Street house known as

Shakespeare's Birthplace Shakespeare's Birthplace is a restored 16th-century half-timbered house situated in Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, where it is believed that William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and spent his childhood years.

. He had many descendants. By the 18th century Joan's descendants were identifying themselves as carrying the poet's family line. John Hart (1755–1800) was identified as "the 6th descendant of the poet Shakespeare" on his gravestone in

Tewkesbury Abbey The Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury–commonly known as Tewkesbury Abbey–is located in the English county of Gloucestershire. A former Benedictine monastery, it is now a parish church. Considered one of the finest examples of No ...

Churchyard,

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of ...

In literature

In her essay ''

A Room of One's Own ''A Room of One's Own'' is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf, first published in September 1929. The work is based on two lectures Woolf delivered in October 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, women's colleges at the University of C ...

'',

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born ...

created a character, "Judith Shakespeare", supposed to be Shakespeare's sister. In fact Judith was his daughter. It is unknown whether this was a mistake or a deliberate conflation of the two women. In her story Shakespeare's sister is denied the education of her brother despite her obvious talent as a writer. When her father tries to marry her off, she runs away to join a theatre company but is ultimately rejected because of her sex. She becomes pregnant, is abandoned by her partner and commits

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and ...

. A teenage Joan appears in Laurie Lawlor's novel ''The Two Loves of Will Shakespeare'' (2006), in which she is presented as an aspirant poet who resents the restrictions placed on her as a woman. She writes

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

s, one of which her brother plagiarises. She is in love with Richard Field, but he pursues

Anne Whateley Anne Whateley is the name given to a woman who is sometimes supposed to have been the intended wife of William Shakespeare before he married Anne Hathaway. Most scholars believe that Whateley never existed, and that her name in a document concer ...

. In ''

Shakespeare's Will William Shakespeare's last will and testament was signed on 25 March 1616, just under a month before his death. The document has been studied for details of his personal life, for his opinions, and for his attitudes towards his two daughters, Su ...

'',

Vern Thiessen Vern Thiessen (born c. 1964) is a Canadian playwright. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Thiessen studied at the University of Winnipeg and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. He later attended the University of Alberta, where he obtained a Master of F ...

's speculative biographical play about

Anne Hathaway Anne Jacqueline Hathaway (born November 12, 1982) is an American actress. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award, she was among the world's highest-paid actresses in 2 ...

, Joan is a "bitch" who is constantly interfering in Anne's life.

Notes and references

Notes

References

Bibliography

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External links

Lin Van Hek Lin Van Hek (aka Lyn van Hecke, born Lyn Whitehead) is an Australian writer, singer, painter, dedigner and artist. She was a vice-president of the Society of Women Writers and co-founder of the literary-music group Difficult Women. Early life Va ...

Difficult Women ''Difficult Women'' is a literary-folk music cabaret created in 1992, in Melbourne, by Lin Van Hek and Joe Dolce and has been performing internationally for 15 years. History ''Difficult Women'', a name taken from the Salem witch trials, ...

read
"Shakespeare's Sister"
in Audio section. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shakespeare, Joan Shakespeare family 1569 births 1646 deaths People from Stratford-upon-Avon 16th-century English women 17th-century English women 17th-century English people