This chapter sets out the factual evidence about Anne's life, which the remainder of the book explores, to show how these details have been reshaped, reanimated, selectively neglevted and embellished to produce imaginative constructs of her over the last four centuries. The few facts that survive about Anne--her age, family home, bequest in Shakespeare's will, children, etc--have been manipulated to construct a relationship between Shakespeare and his wife, about which there is otherwise little documentation.