The front cover to the single features former Coronation Street star Pat Phoenix, dressed up as her character Elsie Tanner.

The title refers to a section of Virginia Woolf's feminist essay A Room of One's Own in which she argues that if William Shakespeare had had a sister of equal genius, as a woman she would not have had the opportunity to make use of it.

[3] According to Simon Goddard, the lyrics also draw on Elizabeth Smart's novella By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept and the Billy Fury song "Don't Jump".

"[7] Morrissey, meanwhile, attributed the underperformance to Rough Trade's insufficient promotion of the single, claiming the label "released 'Shakespeare's Sister' with a monstrous amount of defeatism".

[7] The original single's sleeve cover featured Pat Phoenix, best known for her long-running role as Elsie Tanner in the British soap opera Coronation Street.