William Shakespeare is by common consent, the world’s greatest playwright

yet little is known about Ann Hathaway, his wife, and mother of his children. For centuries scholars and journalists have maligned her, portraying her as a homely wench, who shackled Shakespeare in a loveless and unproductive marriage.

Dr. Germaine Greer, one of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers rescues her in what many consider the first sympathetic rebuttal to Anne’s detractors in “Rethinking Anne Hathaway”. The author of the influential first book “The Female Eunuch” came to Washington, D.C.’s Folger Shakespeare Library and spoke with me soon after.