Despite being written some 400 years ago, William Shakespeare’s plays are still thought to be amongst the greatest in history. It is generally agreed that he wrote 37 plays, however due to lack of documentation for the period, nobody can be sure. It is thought the he wrote a two further pieces, Cardenio and Love’s Labour Won, which were lost through history.

Traditionally, his works are divided into three categories: History, Tragedy and Comedy, as were used in his posthumous work, however in recent years, some of these are now grouped under the romantic title. This is how the titles are grouped together in ‘The Folio’:

Shakespeare Comedies

All’s Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, Cymbeline, The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost, 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, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale

Shakespeare Tragedies

Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, Titus Andronicus

Shakespeare Histories

Henry VI part 1, Henry VI part 2, Henry VI part 3, Henry IV part 1, Henry IV part 2, King John, Henry V, Henry VIII, Richard II, Richard III

Although Shakespeare registered each of his plays, a requirement of publication in the Elizabethan era, he did not issue any of the works; consequently there are no surviving manuscripts. However, due to the lack of copyright laws, 18 unauthorised versions were published in quarto editions. It was not until after his death that a collection of his works (The Folio) was compiled by his fellow actors John Hemminges and Henry Condell, and published.

As was common during the period, William collaborated with other playwrights on a number of his plays. Certain texts have documentation to substantiate this; however recent work by scholars studying word and phrase use, has found that various writing attributed to Shakespeare was indeed by other, unknown, writers.