The Works of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (bap. 25 April 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England – 23 April 1616, Stratford-upon Avon), English poet and playwright.

The Comedies
Title	Date Composed	Story Era	Story Setting
All's Well that Ends Well	c.1604	16th century	France and Italy
As You Like It	c.1599	Renaissance	Renaissance court and a forest ('Arden')
The Comedy of Errors	c.1589-94	1st century BC	Ephesus
Love's Labour's Lost	1593-94	16th century	Navarre
Measure for Measure	c.1604	16th century	Vienna
The Merchant of Venice	1596-97	Renaissance	Venice and Belmont
The Merry Wives of Windsor	1596-97	Mediaeval	Windsor
A Midsummer Night's Dream	1595-96	Antiquity	Athens and the nearby wood
Much Ado About Nothing	1598	16th century	Messina
The Taming of the Shrew	c.1589-94	16th century	Padua, and in the country
The Tempest	1610-11	Renaissance	A remote desert island
Twelfth Night	1599-1601	Renaissance	Illyria
The Two Gentlemen of Verona	1590-95	16th century	Italy
The Winter's Tale	1610-11	Legendary	Sicilia and Bohemia
The Tragedies
Title	Date Composed	Story Era	Story Setting
Antony and Cleopatra	c.1606	c.30 BC	Egypt and Rome
Coriolanus	c.1605-10	3rd century BC	Rome
Cymbeline	c.1608-10	1st century BC	Britain and Rome
Hamlet	c.1600	13th century	Denmark
Julius Caesar	c.1599	44 BC	Rome
King Lear	c.1603-36	Primitive	Britain
Macbeth	c.1603-36	11th century	Scotland
Othello	c.1603-36	Renaissance	Venice and Cyprus
Pericles, Prince of Tyre	1607	Hellenistic	Eastern Mediterranean
Romeo and Juliet	1594-95	15th century	Verona
Timon of Athens	1606-08	Antiquity	Athens and nearby wilderness
Titus Andronicus	c.1589-94	Early Christian	Rome
Troilus and Cressida	1602	Trojan War	Troy and the Greek camp
The Histories
Title	Date Composed	Story Era	Story Setting
Henry IV, Part 1	1596	15th century	England
Henry IV, Part 2	1597-98	15th century	England
Henry V	c.1599	15th century	England and France
Henry VI, Part 1	1590-91	15th century	England and France
Henry VI, Part 2	1590-91	15th century	England
Henry VI, Part 3	1590-91	15th century	England and France
Henry VIII*	1612-13	16th century	England
King John	1594-95	13th century	England and France
Richard II	1595-96	14th century	England
Richard III	1591	15th century	England
Poetry
Title	Composed/Published
'A Lover's Complaint'	first published 1609
The Passionate Pilgrim	first published 1599
'The Phoenix and the Turtle'	composed c.1600
The Rape of Lucrece	composed 1593-94
Sonnets	first published 1609
Venus and Adonis	composed 1592-93
Notes * In collaboration with John Fletcher. Sources Boyce, C. Critical Companion to William Shakespeare: A Literary Reference to His Life and Works, 2 vols., rev. ed. New York: Facts on File Inc., 2005. Cheney, P. G. Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.