The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
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"The Complete Works of William Shakespeare" by William Shakespeare is a comprehensive collection containing all of Shakespeare's plays and poems. This standard volume gathers the playwright's entire output, including histories, tragedies, and comedies that have shaped literature for centuries. Some editions feature collaborative works with other writers, though their authorship remains debated. Published by numerous academic presses and major publishers, these collected editions have become prized possessions for book collectors, often released in luxurious leather-bound formats that preserve Shakespeare's timeless literary legacy.
Contains spoilers for the entire book
- Themes
- Atmosphere
About the book
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare gathers in one volume the plays and poems of the playwright who wrote for the London stage from the early 1590s until around 1613. The plays include comedies such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night, histories of the English kings from King John to Henry VIII, tragedies from Romeo and Juliet to Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, and late romances such as The Tempest. Alongside the plays are the sonnets and the narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Half of the plays survive only because two of Shakespeare’s fellow actors collected them in the First Folio of 1623, seven years after his death. Taken together, the works range across comedy, politics, love, jealousy, ambition and grief, in language that has shaped English ever since.
Characters
Hamlet — Hamlet
A Danish prince struggling to act after a ghost challenges his understanding of his father's death.
Macbeth — Macbeth
A Scottish soldier whose ambition is awakened by a prophecy and encouraged by his wife.
Lady Macbeth — Macbeth
Macbeth's determined wife, who urges him to seize the crown.
Othello — Othello
A military commander whose trust is exploited by his subordinate Iago.
Iago — Othello
An officer who disguises resentment and manipulation beneath an appearance of honesty.
King Lear — King Lear
An aging king whose plan to divide his kingdom exposes the divisions within his family.
Romeo — Romeo and Juliet
A young Montague whose love crosses a bitter family feud.
Juliet — Romeo and Juliet
A young Capulet who must negotiate the conflict between family duty and her love for Romeo.
Rosalind — As You Like It
An exiled young woman who uses disguise and wit to explore the uncertainties of love.
Prospero — The Tempest
An exiled duke and magician who directs the encounters of shipwrecked visitors to his island.
Puck — A Midsummer Night's Dream
A mischievous fairy whose errands entangle mortals in the quarrels of the fairy court.
Shylock — The Merchant of Venice
A Jewish moneylender whose bond with Antonio becomes the focus of a bitter legal conflict.
About the author
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor, born in Stratford-upon-Avon to a glovemaker and educated no further than the grammar school there. In London he became a sharer — a part-owner — in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and in the Globe theatre, which is what made him money; the plays were the company's stock rather than literature, and he took no part in printing them. Two fellow actors collected thirty-six of them in the First Folio of 1623, seven years after his death, and eighteen plays exist only because they did. He also wrote 154 sonnets.