Montblanc created this pen in 2016 in honour of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), in a limited and numbered edition of 8 700 examples. The twenty-fifth of Montblanc’s “Writers Edition”.

The pen’s design evokes the Work of Shakespeare. On the barrel, the gold-plated ring represents his seven most famous plays: a rose and dagger stand for Romeo and Juliet, a skull for Hamlet, two chess pieces for King Lear, a crest for Henry V, a crown for Macbeth, a swirling cloud for The Tempest and a laurel wreath in the form of a ‘C’ for Julius Caesar. The cap is octagonal and its end evokes the ring shape of the roof of the Globe Theatre.

The ball-point-pen was produced in a limited and numbered edition of … 000 examples.

The mechanical pencil was produced in a limited and numbered edition of … 000 examples.

A set of three writing instruments, comprising a fountain-pen, a ball-point-pen and a mechanical pencil, was produced in a limited and numbered edition of … 000 examples.

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Shakespeare, William

Bapt. April 26, 1564 – April 23, 1616

English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon” (or simply “the Bard”). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. They also continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best work produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of Shakespeare’s plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy in his lifetime. However, in 1623, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare’s, John Heminges (1566-1630) and Henry Condell (1572-1637), published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare’s dramatic works that included all but two of his plays. The volume was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson (1566-1630), in which Jonson presciently hailed Shakespeare in a now-famous quote as “not of an age, but for all time”.