Last year, I completed a project I’d been working on for years – to read the complete works of the Bard, in chronological order. It was a very up and down affair. You have to kiss a lot of frogs (King John, Comedy of Errors) before you find the princes (Hamlet (ha!), Lear, the HIVs).

All in all, I’m glad I did it.  I can now speak with at least a little knowledge now about all the plays, but it was also a bit of a slog.

Anyway, throughout the course of the project, I wrote short review of some, but not all, of the plays for various blogs and websites. I’m transferring those reviews (and much else besides!) over here.

As part of that, here’s some general notes that may be of interest to other undertaking such a project.

What Did you Include?

I went with the maximalist approach in determining what to read. This means I included works such as Timon of Athens and the Noble Kinsman (bad as I think both these plays are) which are not in the first folio, but which modern scholars believe Shakespeare at least had a hand in writing. I did not read the sonnets, yet, as the project was confined to the plays and by the time I was done with that I’d have enough of the Bard for now, thanks.

In What Order Did You Read The Works?

Determining the chronology in which Shakespeare wrote the plays is problematic and scholars argue about it to this day. I simply googled “Shakespeare Plays Chronology” and read them in the order that was given on this website.

Here they are in the order I used. Linked titles lead to my idiosyncratic reviews:

 

First Performed	Plays	First Printed
1590-91	Henry VI, Part II	1594?
1590-91	Henry VI, Part III	1594?
1591-92	Henry VI, Part I	1623
1592-93	Richard III	1597
1592-93	Comedy of Errors	1623
1593-94	Titus Andronicus	1594
1593-94	Taming of the Shrew	1623
1594-95	Two Gentlemen of Verona	1623
1594-95	Love’s Labour’s Lost	1598?
1594-95	Romeo and Juliet	1597
1595-96	Richard II	1597
1595-96	A Midsummer Night’s Dream	1600
1596-97	King John	1623
1596-97	The Merchant of Venice	1600
1597-98	Henry IV, Part I	1598
1597-98	Henry IV, Part II	1600
1598-99	Much Ado About Nothing	1600
1598-99	Henry V	1600
1599-1600	Julius Caesar	1623
1599-1600	As You Like It	1623
1599-1600	Twelfth Night	1623
1600-01	Hamlet	1603
1600-01	The Merry Wives of Windsor	1602
1601-02	Troilus and Cressida	1609
1602-03	All’s Well That Ends Well	1623
1604-05	Measure for Measure	1623
1604-05	Othello	1622
1605-06	King Lear	1608
1605-06	Macbeth	1623
1606-07	Antony and Cleopatra	1623
1607-08	Coriolanus	1623
1607-08	Timon of Athens	1623
1608-09	Pericles	1609
1609-10	Cymbeline	1623
1610-11	The Winter’s Tale	1623
1611-12	The Tempest	1623
1612-13	Henry VIII	1623
1612-13	The Two Noble Kinsmen*	1634

 

Frankly, I didn’t much care about the precise order. I wanted to read the early works before the later to get a general sense of his development, but really all I needed was a basic organizing principle to the project. This was the one I chose. It was practically random.

In What Editions Did You Read The Works?

Through the project, I read different works in different editions including editions published by Penguin, Arden, Royal Shakespeare Company, and Folger. Arden is the gold standard in Shakespeare. It provides the most scholarly introductions and the most comprehensive notation. However, I found it heavy lifting for an amateur such as myself. As the project went on, I gravitated to the Folger editions with their more approachable modern explanations of the text, helpful glossaries of terms, and scene synopses.

If you, like me, are an amateur interested in digging into the Bard’s work, I’d suggest Arden. If you’re going to seriously look at a single work, I’d go with Arden. Everything else is second fiddle.

Of course, you can just enjoy the good plays, you know. You don’t have to be a fucking freak about it and read the crummy ones. Odds are if you’re familiar with the big dogs, you’ve gotten enough Shakespeare. No one but the pros and the masochists need to read Two Noble Kinsmen.