Project Gutenberg’s Shakespeare Books

This page describes Project Gutenberg’s multiple versions of the works of William Shakespeare.

Project Gutenberg’s first Shakespeare in 1994
Additional Shakespeare over the years
Where to start for everyday reading enjoyment
For scholars and others with specialized interests
Other versions
Table of the works
About copyright status

Project Gutenberg’s first Shakespeare in 1994

The works of William Shakespeare have a special meaning for the Project Gutenberg collection. Founder Michael Hart’s father was a Shakespeare scholar, and Michael collaborated with his father throughout the 1980s to digitize the complete works of Shakespeare.

The result was #100, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

Since 1994, #100 has been updated many times—to provide an HTML file, to fix typos and other errors, and to be made consistent with the individual works that were published later by Project Gutenberg as separate eBooks.

Additional Shakespeare over the years

Other Shakespeare versions were added later to Project Gutenberg. They had different print sources and were digitized by different volunteers. For simplicity, we refer in this document to the 1100 series, the 1500 series, the 1100 series, the 1700 series, the 2200 series, the Cambridge 1863 series. and “Others”.

By the 2010s, the Project Gutenberg errata team was working on fixing typos and other errors, ensuring there were HTML versions of all works (rather than just plain text, as was originally the case), and that duplicate or near-duplicate files were merged. Some titles were maintained over the years such that they are best grouped with another series, such as Venus and Adonis which, while its book number is #1045, we group with the 1500 series.

Some series include “apocryphal” plays—works with uncertain or disputed authorship. For further information on those, refer to Shakespeare apocrypha on Wikipedia.

Where to start for everyday reading enjoyment

For readers who want to enjoy Shakespeare, probably the best starting point is the 1500 series, along with #100, #1041 and #1045. This series is generally the most complete—it includes Pericles, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and the five longer poems, and features modernized English.

Created in 1998 by the PG Shakespeare Team, a team of about twenty Project Gutenberg volunteers.
The Complete Works has every play, and it has been maintained consistently with the 1500 series (i.e., any updates to those are also in #100).
Includes some apocryphal plays and poetry.
Three plays are duplicated: #1520, #1527 and #1542 are from other editions.

For scholars and others with specialized interests

The 1100 and 2200 series are taken from the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, and are duplicates, with the exception of #2270, Shakespeare’s First Folio, containing all the plays from that edition.
See the Wikipedia article on the First Folio.

Other versions

The other series have not been updated as much as the 1500 series and #100. Generally, readers are advised to instead choose from those.

1765–1802 series: From the World Library.

Similar to the 1500 series.
Three works are missing from this series: #1766, #1767, and #1789.
This series had been listed as copyrighted (© 1990-1993) based on “sweat of the brow” effort to transcribe printed works. Based on contemporary copyright law interpretations, the metadata for these was updated in October 2023 to indicate that they are in the public domain in the U.S.

Cambridge 1863 series: The 9-volume Cambridge Edition of The Works of William Shakespeare, 1863–1866.

See the Wikipedia article about this edition.
Volume 1 is split into introductory material (#23401) and individual plays, volumes 2–8 are posted complete, and volume 9 is in production.

Other: Miscellaneous individual plays and poems from various sources and editions, and audio books.

The works

Title	Series
Title	Modernized	First Folio		World Library	Cambridge 1863	Other
Plays
The Complete Works	100	——	2270	——	——	——
All's Well That Ends Well	1529	1125	2246	1791	50559	——
Antony and Cleopatra	1534	1130	2268	1796	Vol. 9	——
As You Like It	1523	1121	2244	1786	45128	——
The Comedy of Errors	1504	1104	2239	1769	23046	——
Coriolanus	1535	1131	2259	1797	49007	——
Cymbeline	1538	1133	2269	1799	Vol. 9	——
Hamlet	1524	1122	2265	1787	49008	9077 [a], 10606 [b], 22761 [c]
Julius Caesar	1522	1120	2263	1785	47715	28334 [d]
King Henry IV, Part 1	1516	1115	2251	1780	50095	——
King Henry IV, Part 2	1518	1117	2252	1782	50095	——
King Henry V	1521	1119	2253	1784	50095	22791 [c]
King Henry VI, Part 1	1500	1100	2254	1765	49297	——
King Henry VI, Part 2	1501	1101	2255	1766?	49297	——
King Henry VI, Part 3	1502	1102	2256	1767?	49297	——
King Henry VIII	1541	1136	2258	1802	49007	——
King John	1511	1110	2249	1775	50095	——
King Lear	1532	1128	2266	1794	49008	26224 🕪
King Richard II	1512	1111	2250	1776	50095	——
King Richard III	1503	1103	2257	1768	49297	——
Love's Labour's Lost	1510	1109	2241	1774	45128	——
Macbeth	1533	1129	2264	1795	47715	——
Measure for Measure	1530	1126	2238	1792	23045	——
The Merchant of Venice	1515	1114	2243	1779	45128	——
The Merry Wives of Windsor	1517	1116	2237	1781	23044	——
A Midsummer Night's Dream	1514	1113	2242	1778	45128	8609 🕪
Much Ado about Nothing	1519	1118	2240	1783	45128	1520
Othello	1531	1127	2267	1793	49008	——
Pericles, Prince of Tyre	1537	——	——	——	Vol. 9	——
The Rape of Lucrece	1505	——	——	——	——	——
Romeo and Juliet	1513	1112	2261	1777	47715	26268 🕪, 47960 [e]
The Taming of the Shrew	1508	1107	2245	1772	50559	——
The Tempest	1540	1135	2235	1801	23042	47518 [f]
Timon of Athens	1536	1132	2262	1798	47715	——
Titus Andronicus	1507	1106	2260	1771	49007	——
Troilus and Cressida	1528	1124	——	1790	49007	——
Twelfth Night	1526	1123	2247	1789?	50559	1527, 38901 [h]
The Two Gentlemen of Verona	1509	1108	2236	1773	23043	——
The Two Noble Kinsmen	1506	——	——	——	——	1542 [g]
The Winter's Tale	1539	1134	2248	1800	50559	——
Apocrypha (attribution is questionable)
Arden of Faversham	——	——	——	——	——	43440
Fair Em	——	——	——	——	——	5137
King Edward III	——	——	——	1770	——	——
Locrine	1548	——	——	——	——	——
The London Prodigal	——	——	——	——	——	4031
The Merry Devil of Edmonton	——	——	——	——	——	4774
Mucedorus	1545	——	——	——	——	——
The Puritan Widow	——	——	——	——	——	4214
Sir John Oldcastle	——	——	——	1788	——	——
Sir Thomas More	1547 [i]	——	——	——	——	——
Thomas Lord Cromwell	——	——	——	——	——	1736
A Yorkshire Tragedy	——	——	——	——	——	4255
Poetry
A Lover's Complaint	1543	——	——	——	——	1137 [j]
The Passionate Pilgrim	1544	——	——	——	——	——
The Phoenix and the Turtle	1525	——	——	——	——	——
Sonnet #29	——	——	——	——	——	12719 🕪
Sonnet #40	——	——	——	——	——	12720 🕪
Sonnet #55	——	——	——	——	——	12721 🕪
Sonnet #100	——	——	——	——	——	12722 🕪
Sonnet #106	——	——	——	——	——	12723 🕪
Sonnet #116	——	——	——	——	——	12724 🕪
Sonnets	1041	——	——	——	——	1105 [j]
Sonnets on Sundry Notes of Music	1546	——	——	——	——	——
Venus and Adonis	1045	——	——	——	——	——

Notes:

🕪 Audio book.
[a] 1603 Trundell printing, text source only.
[b] First Folio with student study, text source only.
[c] 1859 Charles Kean edition.
[d] The New Hudson Shakespeare.
[e] Illustrated edition, Rolfe 1879.
[f] Illustrated by Edmund Dulac, text from the Oxford edition.
[g] From C. F. Tucker Brooke’s 1908 edition of The Shakespeare Apocrypha.
[h] Kemble 1811 edition.
[i] Re-edited from the Harleian MS. 7368 in the British Museum.
[j] Sonnets and poems are not included in the First Folio, this is in modern English.