William Shakespeare's plays

We know of 39 plays by William Shakespeare, including a few collaborations with other playwrights. One play, Cardenio, was performed at court in the 1612–13 season, but the text has been lost. The other 38 are listed here.

Shakespeare’s plays are traditionally divided into the three categories of the First Folio: comedies, histories, and tragedies. The plays within each grouping vary widely. Among the comedies, for example, one can find sunny works filled with the banter of witty lovers; hilariously complicated farces; and darker, more sober plays such as The Tempest.

For more information about Shakespeare's poetry, visit William Shakespeare's poems.

The following pages provide a rich assortment of Folger resources for each play, including images from the Folger collection, links to full-length digital facsimiles of early printed editions, and materials ranging from Folger Theatre productions in the Folger's Elizabethan Theatre, Exhibitions at the Folger, Folger Consort performances, to classroom lesson plans, videos, audio podcasts, blog posts, recordings, websites, and shop items. Each page includes a short introduction to the play adapted from the Folger paperback edition, a list of related books, and, where available, a list of related movies.

Shakespeare's works are available online at Folger Digital Texts and in print from Simon and Schuster. A selection of works are available as ebooks from Simon and Schuster. The Folger has also published two collections of Shakespeare's works, Three Comedies, which includes A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night, and Three Tragedies, which includes Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet.

To read more about the Folger Shakespeare Library editions of Shakespeare in partnership with Simon and Schuster, visit Folger Shakespeare Library editions of Shakespeare's works.

Comedies

All's Well That Ends Well

As You Like It

Cardenio--A lost play.

The Comedy of Errors

Cymbeline

Love's Labor's Lost

Love's Labor's Won--A lost play.

Measure for Measure

The Merchant of Venice

The Merry Wives of Windsor

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Much Ado About Nothing

Pericles

The Taming of the Shrew

The Tempest

Troilus and Cressida

Twelfth Night

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Noble Kinsmen

The Winter's Tale

Histories

Henry IV, Part 1

Henry IV, Part 2

Henry V

Henry VI, Part 1

Henry VI, Part 2

Henry VI, Part 3

Henry VIII

King John

Richard II

Richard III

Tragedies

Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus

Hamlet

Julius Caesar

King Lear

Macbeth

Othello

Romeo and Juliet

Timon of Athens

Titus Andronicus