Shakespeare's sexuality, religious beliefs, and even some fringe theories about the authorship of his works have sparked considerable debate.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613 . His early plays, primarily comedies and histories, are regarded as some of the best in these genres. From then until 1608, he mainly wrote tragedies, including *Romeo and Juliet*, *Hamlet*, *Othello*, *King Lear*, and *Macbeth*, all of which are considered some of the finest works in the English language . In the later phase of his career, he turned to tragicomedies, also known as romances, such as *The Winter's Tale* and *The Tempest*, and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a more definitive posthumous collection of his dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. The Preface of the First Folio features a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, which hails him with the now-famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
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