William Shakespeare is an 1864 work by Victor Hugo, written in his 13th year of exile.
The title is misleading; the true subject of the work is the writers that Hugo considered "the greatest geniuses of all time.
However it grew to be approximately 300 pages in length and Hugo had to write a separate introduction to the plays.
Shakespeare, but also Homer, Job, Aeschylus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Lucretius, Juvenal, St. John, St. Paul, Tacitus, Dante, Rabelais, and Cervantes.
That is why all poets, all philosophers, all thinkers, all the producers of the greatness of the mind must be translated, commented on, published, printed, reprinted, stereotyped, distributed, explained, recited, spread abroad, given to all, given cheaply, given at cost price, given for nothing.