When he turned forty in 1604, William Shakespeare was lodging in the house of a London merchant who made “tires”: decorative headwear for the aristocracy, members of the upper middle class, and, very likely, theater companies. According to The Lodger Shakespeare by Charles Nicholl, Shakespeare stayed for a season or two before moving. Eight years later, he gave a deposition in a lawsuit brought against his former landlord. Ironically, the playwright whose verbal memory has long amazed critics said he could not recall the terms of an agreement about which he was...

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