Complete list of Shakespeare’s works

William Shakespeare’s works deal with a wide variety of themes and styles. Between 1590 and 1612, Shakespeare is believed to have written some 38 plays spanning comedy, historical plays, and tragedies. A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth  are clear examples of how different the creations that flowed from the pen of the same author can be, leading the audience to join the game or to wait for the development of the catastrophe in each work. Meanwhile, works like The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale subtly touch the limits of the aforementioned categories.

The authorship of Shakespeare’s works is a matter of debate. Due to the little documentation of the time and the genius of the works, some experts theorize that William Shakespeare is nothing more than a false name that a playwright of the time used to publish anonymously. Shakespeare’s first play is believed to be Henry VI, Part I , a history play about English politics in the years leading up to the Wars of the Roses. One theory says that the possible author (or co-author) of this play is Christopher Marlowe, another Elizabethan playwright best known for his tragedy  Doctor Faustus . Shakespeare’s last play is believed to have been The Two Noble Knights., a tragicomedy allegedly co-written with John Fletcher in 1613, three years before the playwright’s death.

When were Shakespeare’s plays published?

Because not all performances from the period were recorded, it is difficult to know for sure when each Shakespearean play was published. The current consensus on the chronology is based on the unification of different groups of data, among which the dates of the covers of the first editions, the newspapers of the time and the dates of the known presentations stand out. Each play was staged within a fairly narrow period, but it is impossible to know exactly the year of its composition. The creative work of each author is independent of the release date and setting a composition date would be pure speculation.

Another element that makes it difficult to know when Shakespeare’s works were published is that many of them have multiple editions with certain variations. For example,  Hamlet is believed to have been written between 1600 and 1601; It was published in written form in 1603 and went through several editions, including an extended version in 1604, which included 50 more lines. Modern academic editions unify material from various editions.

For all of the above, the years of publication in this article are approximations:

1. Henry VI, Part 1 (1589-1590)
2. Henry VI, Part 2 (1590-1591)
3. Henry VI, Part 3 (1590-1591)
4. Richard III  (1592-1593)
5. The comedy of errors  (1592-1593)
6. Titus Andronicus  (1593-1594)
7. The Taming of the Shrew  (1593-1594)
8. The two noblemen of Verona  (1594-1595)
9. Love’s Labor Lost  (1594-1595)
10. Romeo and Juliet  (1594-1595)
11. Richard II  (1595-1596)
12. A Midsummer Night’s Dream  (1595-1596)
13. King John  (1596-1597)
14. The Merchant of Venice  (1596-1597)
15. Henry IV, Part 1  (1597-1598)
16. Henry IV, part 2  (1597-1598)
17. Much Ado About Nothing  (1598-1599)
18. Henry V  (1598-1599)
19. Julius Caesar  (1599-1600)
20. As you like or So it is if you think so (1599-1600)
21. Twelfth Night  (1599-1600)
22. Hamlet  (1600-1601)
23. The Merry Wives of Windsor  (1600-1601)
24. Troilus and Cressida  (1601-1602)
25. All is well that ends well  or There is no bad beginning to a good end (1602-1603)
26. Measure for Measure  (1604–1605)
27. Othello  (1604-1605)
28. King Lear  (1605-1606)
29. Macbeth (1605-1606)
30. Antony and Cleopatra  (1606-1607)
31. Coriolanus  (1607-1608)
32. Timon of Athens or The Life of Timon of Athens  (1607-1608)
33. Pericles, Prince of Tire  (1608-1609)
34. Cymbeline   (1609-1610)
35. Winter’s Tale (1610-1611)
36. Henry VIII  (1612-1613)
37. The Tempest  (1611-1612)
38. The two noble knights  (1612-1613)

Authorship and controversy

In the 19th century, various literary historians popularized the so-called anti-Stratfordian theory which held that Shakespeare’s plays were actually the creation and pen of Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, or even a group of playwrights signing under the Shakespeare pseudonym. Going the other way, though, the current consensus is that William Shakespeare, the man born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, wrote many, if not all, of the plays named after him.

Notably, there is evidence that some of the works attributed to Shakespeare were collaborations. In 2016, a group of academics analyzed all three parts of  Henry VI and concluded that Christopher Marlowe was also involved in authoring it. Thanks to these studies, editions published by Oxford University Press bear Marlowe’s last name as co-author.

Another example of collaboration was the play The Two Noble Gentlemen , co-written with John Fletcher, who also worked with Shakespeare on Cardenio . Of this work, which was destroyed in a fire at The Globe Theater in London , only an incomplete copy survived. Some scholars believe that Shakespeare may also have collaborated with other playwrights and authors of the time such as George Peele, George Wilkins, and Thomas Middleton.

References

Bringuillo. (1872). Works of William Shakspeare: faithfully translated from the original. Available at: https://books.google.co.ve/books?id=CJoBbGlbzsMC&dq

Master, J. (2004). Cervantes and Shakespeare: the birth of metatheatrical literature. Vanderbilt University. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1475382042000254409?journalCode=cbhs20