The Complete Works of
William Shakespeare

by William Shakespeare


William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy in his lifetime. However, in 1623, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, John Heminges and Henry Condell, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that included all but two of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is the standard name given to any volume containing all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare. Some editions include several works that were not completely of Shakespeare's authorship (collaborative writings), such as The Two Noble Kinsmen, which was a collaboration with John Fletcher; Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the first two acts of which were likely written by George Wilkins; or Edward III, whose authorship is disputed.
Excerpted from William Shakespeare on Wikipedia.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

person AuthorWilliam Shakespeare
language CountryEngland
api GenreDrama, Tragedy, Comedy, Romance, History Play, Poetry
copyright CopyrightPublic domain worldwide.
camera_alt Book coverOberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing. From William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Artist: William Blake | wikimedia
book_online EbooksProject Gutenberg
description ScansGoogle-digitized
headphones AudioLibrivox | Internet Archive
auto_stories Read onlineI. SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY
Shakespearean tragedy is the designation given to most tragedies written by playwright William Shakespeare. Many of his history plays share the qualifiers of a Shakespearean tragedy, but because they are based on real figures throughout the history of England, they were classified as "histories" in the First Folio.

1.Antony and Cleopatra
Year written:1606-1607

2. Coriolanus
Year written: 1607-1608

3.Hamlet
Year written: 1600-1601

4. Julius Caesar
Year written: 1599-1600

5. King Lear
Year written: 1605-1606

6. Macbeth
Year written: 1605-1606

7. Othello
Year written: 1604-1605

8. Romeo and Juliet
Year written: 1594-1595

9. Timon of Athens
Year written: 1605-1608

10. Troilus and Cressida
Year written: 1601-1602

11. Titus Andronicus
Year written: 1591-1593


II. SHAKESPEAREAN COMEDY
Everything listed as a comedy in the First Folio of 1623, in addition to the two quarto plays (The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre) which are not included in the Folio but generally recognised to be Shakespeare's own

1. A Midsummer Night's Dream 
Year written: Approximately 1595

2. All's Well That Ends Well **
Year written: 1601–1608

3. As You Like It
Year written: 1599–1600

4. Cymbeline *
Year written: around 1609

5. Love 's Labour's Lost
Year written: mid-1590s

6. Measure for Measure **
Year written: 1603 or 1604

7. Much Ado About Nothing
Year written: 1598-1599

8. Pericles, Prince of Tyre *
Year written: Either 1607–1608, or written at an earlier date and revised at that time

9. The Comedy of Errors
Year written: 1592–1594

10. The Merchant of Venice
Year written: between 1596 and 1599

11. The Merry Wives of Windsor
Year written: in or before 1597

12. The Taming of the Shrew
Year written: between 1590 and 1592

13. The Tempest *
Year written: 1610–1611

14. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Year written: between 1589 and 1593

15. The Two Noble Kinsmen *
Year written: 1613–1614

16. The Winter's Tale **
Year written: Estimates vary widely, from 1594–1611

17. Twelfth Night. 
Year written: 1600–1601

*: now commonly referred to as the romances
**: sometimes referred to as the problem plays.


III. SHAKESPEAREAN HISTORY
The Shakespearean histories are biographies of English kings of the previous four centuries and include the standalones King John, Edward III and Henry VIII as well as a continuous sequence of eight plays. As they are in the First Folio, the plays are listed here in the sequence of their action:

1. King John
Year written: 1595–1598

2. Edward III
Year written: 1592 or 1593

3. Richard II *
Year written: around 1595

4. Henry IV, Part 1 *
Year written: Likely early to mid 1590s

5. Henry IV, Part 2 *
Year written: 1597–1599

6. Henry V *
Year written: 1599

7. Henry VI, Part 1 **
Year written: 1588–1592

8. Henry VI, Part 2 **
Year written: 1590–1591

9. Henry VI, Part 3 **
Year written: 1590–1591

10. Richard III **
Year written: Around 1593

11. Henry VIII
Year written: not appearing until the play's publication in the First Folio of 1623

*: Lancastrian Tetralogy. This group may also be referred to as the "second tetralogy" or "second Henriad"
**: War of the Roses Saga


IV. SELECTED POEMS

1. A Lover's Complaint (no audio)
First publications: 1609

2. Shakespeare's Sonnets
First publications: 1609

3. The Phoenix and the Turtle
First publications: 1601

4. The Rape of Lucrece
First publications: 1594

5. Venus and Adonis
First publications: 1593


V. SHAKESPEARE APOCRYPHA
The Shakespeare apocrypha is a group of plays and poems that have sometimes been attributed to William Shakespeare, but whose attribution is questionable for various reasons.

1. A Yorkshire Tragedy (wikipedia)

2. Arden of Faversham (wikipedia)

3. Cardenio (lost *) (wikipedia)

4. Double Falsehood (wikipedia)

5. Edmund Ironside (wikipedia)

6. Fair Em (wikipedia)

7. Locrine (wikipedia)

8. Love's Labour's Won (lost *) (wikipedia)

9. Mucedorus (wikipedia)

10. Sejanus His Fall (wikipedia)

11. Sir John Oldcastle (wikipedia)

12. Sir Thomas More  (wikipedia)

13. The Birth of Merlin (wikipedia)

14. The London Prodigal (wikipedia)

15. The Merry Devil of Edmonton (wikipedia)

16. The Passionate Pilgrim (wikipedia)

17. The Puritan (wikipedia)

18. The Second Maiden's Tragedy (wikipedia)

19. The Spanish Tragedy (wikipedia)

20. Thomas Lord Cromwell (wikipedia)

21. Thomas of Woodstock (wikipedia)

22. To the Queen (wikipedia)

23. Ur-Hamlet   (wikipedia)

24. Vortigern and Rowena (wikipedia)

Lost *: A lost work is a document, literary work, or piece of multimedia produced some time in the past, of which no surviving copies are known to exist. It can only be known through reference.