author
Frederick Gard Fleay
1831–1909
Best known as a pioneering Shakespeare scholar, he brought a strikingly methodical eye to the study of Elizabethan drama. His books helped shape later work on Shakespeare’s chronology, sources, and stage history.
1 Audiobook
A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare Player, Poet, and Playmaker
by Frederick Gard Fleay
About the author
Born in Deptford on September 5, 1831, Frederick Gard Fleay studied at King's College London and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was ordained in the Church of England and spent about twenty years working as a schoolmaster before turning more fully to literary research.
Fleay became one of the most active Shakespeare scholars of the nineteenth century. He wrote extensively on Shakespeare, the English drama, and major poets including Chaucer and Spenser, and he was especially known for trying to date and classify plays through detailed, systematic analysis.
Although some of his conclusions were later revised, his work was widely influential and helped establish a more rigorous approach to Shakespeare studies. He died on March 10, 1909.