Shakespeare - when was he famous?

[Barquentine]

Does anyone know when William Shakespeare first became famous? I know there are problems dating the composition/first performance/publication of his plays, but what's the earliest date he would have become a 'household' name by? I'm not sure what I mean by 'household' in the context of the 1590s/early 1600s. Would the groundlings care who the writer was? Perhaps I mean when would his name start to be discussed all over London, and maybe across the country too?

[heathfield]

Apparently he started making a name for himself when he began appearing on-stage as an actor in 1592. This was before he began putting pen to paper.

[jno]

his writing was criticised by another playwright in 1592, so presumably his name was already known at that stage as both writer and actor:

From Wikipedia:

It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592. He was well enough known in London by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit:

...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.

[Barquentine]

Many thanks. So by 1616 he should have been famous enough for his death to have been widely reported and not to have passed unnoticed across the length and breadth of England?

[jno]

in those days virtually nothing except the death of a monarch got noticed all over England. No newspapers, no internet etc etc. It's more than likely that people in (say) York lived and died without ever hearing of Shakespeare. His death would have been known in London and Stratford upon Avon, but that's about all.

He 'died on the same day' as Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote - though actually different calendars were in force in England and Spain, so the deaths were really 10 days apart.

[Barquentine]

Many thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing 'Anonymous' again when it comes out in September.