Shakespearean biofiction has a long history but recently has seen a boom in production of texts and in public and scholarly interest. From the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries, Shakespeare’s biography has inspired playwrights, poets, novelists, filmmakers, graphic artists and other creators to explore, imagine, and invent diverse biographical stories about the Stratford writer. Across the globe, Shakespearean biofiction gives life to new Shakespeares, to his wife Anne, their two daughters and son Hamnet, and speculates on Shakespeare’s relationships with lovers, patrons, and literary collaborators. The fifty-five chapters of The Palgrave Handbook of Shakespearean Biofiction, written by established and emerging scholars, examine the history, genres, forms, and geographies of this work; spotlight key figures in Shakespeare’s life; offer new directions in research; and include interviews with and insights from biofiction practitioners. This landmark study of Shakespearean biofiction contributes to a range of fields and disciplines including biofiction and Shakespeare studies, Literary studies, Drama and Performance studies, Film and Screen media, Cultural Studies and History.

Katherine Scheil is Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, USA. She is the author of The Taste of the Town: Shakespearean Comedy and the Early Eighteenth-Century Theatre (2003); Shakespeare/Adaptation/Modern Drama (with Randall Martin, 2011); She Hath Been Reading: Women and Shakespeare Clubs in America (2012); Imagining Shakespeare’s Wife: The Afterlife of Anne Hathaway (2018); Shakespeare & Stratford (2019); Shakespeare & Biography (with Graham Holderness, 2020); and Anne Shakespeare's Epitaph (2026). She is finishing a book on the history of women and Stratford-upon-Avon, and Father Shakespeare, a book about Shakespeare and biofiction.

Edel Semple is Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare Studies at University College Cork, Ireland. She is the co-editor of Shakespearean Biofiction on the Contemporary Stage and Screen (2023), Staged Normality in Shakespeare’s England (Palgrave, 2019), Staged Transgression in Shakespeare’s England (Palgrave, 2013). Her research focuses on gender in Shakespearean drama, biofiction, and adaptations, and she is working on a book-length study of Shakespeare’s female characters on screen.