As well as writing many of the world’s greatest plays, he was a successful businessman and major landowner in his native Warwickshire who retired an extremely wealthy man. 
 
 However, a new study has found that he was repeatedly prosecuted and fined for illegally hoarding food, and threatened with jail for failing to pay his taxes, The Sunday Times reported. 
 
 Court and tax records show that over a 15-year period Shakespeare purchased grain, malt and barley to store and resell for inflated prices, according to a paper by Aberystwyth University academics Dr Jayne Archer, Professor Richard Marggraf Turley and Professor Howard Thomas. 
 
 The study notes: "By combining both illegal and legal activities, Shakespeare was able to retire in 1613 as the largest property owner in his home town, Stratford-upon-Avon. His profits - minus a few fines for illegal hoarding and tax evasion - meant he had a working life of just 24 years." 
 
 The research sheds new light on Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus - written around the time of a 1607 peasant revolt in the Midlands - which centres on riots over grain-hoarding by the wealthy few. ||||| Hoarder, moneylender, tax dodger _ it's not how we usually think of William Shakespeare. 
 
 FILE - This is a Monday March 9, 2009 file of a then newly discovered portrait of William Shakespeare, presented by the Shakespeare Birthplace trust, is seen in central London, New research depicts... (Associated Press) 
 
 But we should, according to a group of academics who say the Bard was a ruthless businessman who grew wealthy dealing in grain during a time of famine. 
 
 Researchers from Aberystwyth University in Wales argue that we can't fully understand Shakespeare unless we study his often-overlooked business savvy. 
 
 "Shakespeare the grain-hoarder has been redacted from history so that Shakespeare the creative genius could be born," the researchers say in a paper due to be delivered at the Hay literary festival in Wales in May. 
 
 Jayne Archer, a lecturer in medieval and Renaissance literature at Aberystwyth, said that oversight is the product of "a willful ignorance on behalf of critics and scholars who I think _ perhaps through snobbery _ cannot countenance the idea of a creative genius also being motivated by self-interest." 
 
 Archer and her colleagues Howard Thomas and Richard Marggraf Turley combed through historical archives to uncover details of the playwright's parallel life as a grain merchant and property owner in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon whose practices sometimes brought him into conflict with the law. 
 
 "Over a 15-year period he purchased and stored grain, malt and barley for resale at inflated prices to his neighbors and local tradesmen," they wrote, adding that Shakespeare "pursued those who could not (or would not) pay him in full for these staples and used the profits to further his own money-lending activities." 
 
 He was pursued by the authorities for tax evasion, and in 1598 was prosecuted for hoarding grain during a time of shortage. 
 
 The charge sheet against Shakespeare was not entirely unknown, though it may come as shock to some literature lovers. But the authors argue that modern readers and scholars are out of touch with the harsh realities the writer and his contemporaries faced. 
 
 He lived and wrote in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, during a period known as the "Little Ice Age," when unusual cold and heavy rain caused poor harvests and food shortages. 
 
 "I think now we have a rather rarefied idea of writers and artists as people who are disconnected from the everyday concerns of their contemporaries," Archer said. "But for most writers for most of history, hunger has been a major concern _ and it has been as creatively energizing as any other force." 
 
 She argues that knowledge of the era's food insecurity can cast new light on Shakespeare's plays, including "Coriolanus," which is set in an ancient Rome wracked by famine. The food protests in the play can be seen to echo the real-life 1607 uprising of peasants in the English Midlands, where Shakespeare lived. 
 
 Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate told the Sunday Times newspaper that Archer and her colleagues had done valuable work, saying their research had "given new force to an old argument about the contemporaneity of the protests over grain-hoarding in `Coriolanus.'" 
 
 Archer said famine also informs "King Lear," in which an aging monarch's unjust distribution of his land among his three daughters sparks war. 
 
 "In the play there is a very subtle depiction of how dividing up land also involves impacts on the distribution of food," Archer said. 
 
 Archer said the idea of Shakespeare as a hardheaded businessman may not fit with romantic notions of the sensitive artist, but we shouldn't judge him too harshly. Hoarding grain was his way of ensuring that his family and neighbors would not go hungry if a harvest failed. 
 
 "Remembering Shakespeare as a man of hunger makes him much more human, much more understandable, much more complex," she said. 
 
 "He would not have thought of himself first and foremost as a writer. Possibly as an actor _ but first and foremost as a good father, a good husband and a good citizen to the people of Stratford." 
 
 She said the playwright's funeral monument in Stratford's Holy Trinity Church reflected this. The original monument erected after his death in 1616 showed Shakespeare holding a sack of grain. In the 18th century, it was replaced with a more "writerly" memorial depicting Shakespeare with a tasseled cushion and a quill pen. 
 
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 Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless ||||| Bad Bard: a tax dodger and famine profiteer 
 
 Jonathan Cake as Coriolanus: the play is set during a famine (Mark Ellidge) 
 
 FOR centuries it has been regarded as a plea for the starving poor, but could Shakespeare’s Coriolanus have been his way of trying to expunge a guilty conscience? 
 
 The play depicts a famine created and exploited by rich merchants and politicians to maximise the price of food and includes the lines: “They ne’er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain”. 
 
 It has now emerged that as Shakespeare wrote the play at the height of the 1607 food riots, he was himself hoarding grain. As one of the biggest landowners in Warwickshire, he was ideally placed to push prices up and then sell at the top of the market. 
 
 “There was another side to Shakespeare besides the brilliant playwright — as a ruthless businessman who did all he could to avoid taxes, maximise profits at others’ expense and exploit the vulnerable — while also writing plays
– William Shakespeare was, of course, an acclaimed playwright—but according to researchers, he was also a grain hoarder, tax evader, and all-around "ruthless" businessman. "Shakespeare the grain-hoarder has been redacted from history so that Shakespeare the creative genius could be born," say the academics in a paper that will be presented at a May literary festival. They paint the picture of a grain merchant and landowner who got rich by buying and storing grain, malt, and barley, which he resold at higher prices during times of famine, the AP reports. He then "pursued those who could not (or would not) pay him in full for these staples and used the profits to further his own money-lending activities," according to the paper. Shakespeare was actually prosecuted in 1598 for hoarding grain during a food shortage, and that's not all: He was also wanted for tax evasion. He was fined for both, and threatened with jail over the tax issue, reports the Telegraph, citing the Sunday Times. The AP notes that these details weren't entirely unknown, and one of the researchers says critics and scholars tend to ignore this information because they "cannot countenance the idea of a creative genius also being motivated by self-interest." But, she adds, these details actually inform Shakespeare's work: In Coriolanus, for example, the people complain when rich merchants exploit the famine in order to maximize profits; and in King Lear, "there is a very subtle depiction of how dividing up land also involves impacts on the distribution of food."