12 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About William Shakespeare

4. All Of Shakespeare's Plays Were Solely Written By Him... At Least Three Were Collaborations

In 16th and 17th-Century England it was extremely common for playwrights to collaborate on works rather than write alone - and at least three of Shakespeare's plays were not created entirely by himself. "Timon of Athens" saw Shakespeare work with Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher (pictured above) helped the Bard to write "The Two Noble Kinsmen", while "Pericles" was a collaboration with George Wilkins. It is believed that Wilkins wrote the first half of Pericles and then Shakespeare completed it, while the same appears to have happened with the 1634 publication of The Two Noble Kinsmen with Fletcher. There have even been suggestions that "All's Well That Ends Well" and "Macbeth" were collaborative works due to the fact writing styles vary throughout, although this has never been proven definitively. This revelation certainly doesn't make Shakespeare a fraud, it just clarifies a commonly-held misconception.