All times in UTC ·
Dashed edge = started before, or continues beyond, this day
Events on Wednesday 20 May 1609 1
1609Sonnets publishedShakespeare's 154 sonnets are published by Thomas Thorpe, probably without Shakespeare's direct involvement, as Shakespeare's Sonnets. The dedication — "To the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets Mr W.H." — remains one of literature's great unsolved mysteries. The sequence is addressed to a beautiful young man, a dark lady, and a rival poet; their relationships, and the poet's shifting positions toward all three, constitute the most searching lyric sequence in the English language.