<P> In 1599, a partnership of members of the company built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they named the Globe . In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre . Extant records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that his association with the company made him a wealthy man, and in 1597, he bought the second - largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford . </P> <P> Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions, beginning in 1594, and by 1598, his name had become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages . Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright . The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonson's Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end . The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although we cannot know for certain which roles he played . In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles . In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father . Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It, and the Chorus in Henry V, though scholars doubt the sources of that information . </P> <P> Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford . In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames . He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the same year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there . By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses . There, he rented rooms from a French Huguenot named Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of ladies' wigs and other headgear . </P> <P> Rowe was the first biographer to record the tradition, repeated by Johnson, that Shakespeare retired to Stratford "some years before his death". He was still working as an actor in London in 1608; in an answer to the sharers' petition in 1635, Cuthbert Burbage stated that after purchasing the lease of the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry Evans, the King's Men "placed men players" there, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakespeare, etc .". However, it is perhaps relevant that the bubonic plague raged in London throughout 1609 . The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague (a total of over 60 months closure between May 1603 and February 1610), which meant there was often no acting work . Retirement from all work was uncommon at that time . Shakespeare continued to visit London during the years 1611--1614 . In 1612, he was called as a witness in Bellott v. Mountjoy, a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary . In March 1613, he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; and from November 1614, he was in London for several weeks with his son - in - law, John Hall . After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613 . His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright of the King's Men . </P>

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