William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Biographical note

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer the English language has ever seen. Whether you agree with that or not, he is certainly the most quoted author of all time. His output of 37 plays, 154 sonnets and sundry other poems is extraordinary by any measure.

The plays are conventionally divided into the Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. The list here adopts the additional subdivision of Romances used by many collections. It should be noted that the term "Comedy" had a somewhat different meaning in Shakespeare's day, and the Comedies often feature morally dubious plots by today's standards.

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from Wikipedia
from A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, by John W. Cousin
The Preface to Shakespeare, by Samuel Johnson
Shakespeare; or, The Poet, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown [ read | download ]

Works

Download the entire collection (5MB Zip archive)

Librarians: download a MARC file of records for this collection.

The Comedies

All's Well That Ends Well [ read | print | download ]
As You Like It [ read | print | download ]
The Comedy of Errors [ read | print | download ]
Love’s Labour ’s Lost [ read | print | download ]
Measure for Measure [ read | print | download ]
The Merry Wives of Windsor [ read | print | download ]
The Merchant of Venice [ read | print | download ]
A Midsummer Night's Dream [ read | print | download ]
Much Ado About Nothing [ read | print | download ]
The Taming of the Shrew [ read | print | download ]
Twelfth Night; or, What you will [ read | print | download ]
The Two Gentlemen of Verona [ read | print | download ]

The Romances

Pericles, Prince of Tyre [ read | print | download ]
Cymbeline [ read | print | download ]
The Winter's Tale [ read | print | download ]
The Tempest [ read | print | download ]

The Histories

The Life and Death of King John [ read | print | download ]
The Tragedy of King Richard the Second [ read | print | download ]
The first part of King Henry the Fourth [ read | print | download ]
The second part of King Henry the Fourth [ read | print | download ]
The Life of King Henry V [ read | print | download ]
The first part of King Henry the Sixth [ read | print | download ]
The second part of King Henry the Sixth [ read | print | download ]
The third part of King Henry the Sixth [ read | print | download ]
The Life of King Henry the Eighth [ read | print | download ]
The Tragedy of King Richard the Third [ read | print | download ]

The Tragedies

Titus Andronicus [ read | print | download ]
Romeo and Juliet [ read | print | download ]
Julius Caesar [ read | print | download ]
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark [ read | print | download ]
The History of Troilus and Cressida [ read | print | download ]
Othello, the Moor of Venice [ read | print | download ]
King Lear [ read | print | download ]
Macbeth [ read | print | download ]
The Life of Timon of Athens [ read | print | download ]
Antony and Cleopatra [ read | print | download ]
Coriolanus [ read | print | download ]

Poetry

The Sonnets [ read/print | download ]
A Lover's Complaint [ read/print | download ]
The Rape of Lucrece [ read/print | download ]
Venus and Adonis [ read/print | download ]
The Phoenix and the Turtle [ read/print | download ]
The Passionate Pilgrim [ read/print | download ]