The Will’s World Project…

I dithered about starting this project for a while, a couple of years actually. So much so, that I’ve borrowed a copy of the Complete Works from a friend…and this ended up sitting on my shelf for almost two years with very little attention being paid to it, apart from a reading two or three plays I hadn’t read before and using the book for reference otherwise.

Anyway, I thought it was time I made a start on discovering the rest of the plays. (I’ll probably skip some of the ones I already know.)

Updates (completed/already read – bold):

• The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1589–1591) – 2*
• The Taming of the Shrew (1590–1591) – 2*
• Henry VI, Part 2 (1591) – 3.5*
• Henry VI, Part 3 (1591) – 3.5*
• Henry VI, Part 1 (1591–1592) – 3.5*
• Titus Andronicus (1591–1592) – 1.5*
• Richard III (1592–1593) – 4*
• Venus and Adonis (1592-93) – 4*
• The Rape of Lucrece (1593-94) – 2.5*
• Edward III (1592–1593) – 2*
• The Comedy of Errors (1594) – 3*
• Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594–1595) – 3.5*
• Love’s Labour’s Won (1595–1596) – Play was referenced but it is presumed that no copy still exists. 
• Richard II (1595) – 3.5*
• Romeo and Juliet (1595) – 3*
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595) – 2*
• King John (1596) – 3*
• The Merchant of Venice (1596–1597) – 3.5*
• Henry IV, Part 1 (1596–1597) – 3.5*
• The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597) – 3.5*
• Henry IV, Part 2 (1597–1598) – 3.5*
• Much Ado About Nothing (1598–1599) – 3*
• Henry V (1599) – 5*
• Julius Caesar (1599) – 5*
• As You Like It (1599–1600) – 2*
• Hamlet (1599–1601) – 4*
• Twelfth Night (1601) – 5*
• Troilus and Cressida (1600–1602)
• Sir Thomas More (1603-1604)
• Measure for Measure (1603–1604)
• Othello (1603–1604)
• All’s Well That Ends Well (1604–1605)
• King Lear (1605–1606)
• Timon of Athens (1605–1606)
• Macbeth (1606) – 5*
• Antony and Cleopatra (1606) – 3*
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1607–1608)
• Coriolanus (1608)
• The Winter’s Tale (1609–1611) – 2*
• Cymbeline (1610)
• The Tempest (1610–1611) – 4*
• Cardenio (1612–1613)
• Henry VIII (1612–1613)
• The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613–1614)

Additional Will’s World Reads:

• Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood – 4.5*
• Richard of Bordeaux by Gordon Daviot (aka Josephine Tey) – 4*
• Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett – 3*
• Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography by Diana Price – 2.5*
• Shakespeare: A Life in Drama by Stanley Wells – 5*
• Why Shakespeare was Shakespeare by Stanley Wells – 5*
• Woza Shakespeare! by Antony Sher and Greg Doran – 5*
• John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama by Rupert Brooke – 3*
• Shakespeare & Co. by Stanley Wells – 3*
• Shylock is My Name by Howard Jacobson – 1*
• The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson – 4*
• Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler – 2*
• Actors on Shakespeare: Macbeth by Harriet Walter – 5*
• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell – 1* (DNF)
• Shakespeare’s Kings by John Julius Norwich – 3*
• Macbeth by Jo Nesbo – 1*
• Death by Shakespeare by Kathryn Harkup – 1.5*

• The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare by Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells
• Brutus and Other Heroines by Harriet Walter
• Shakespeare, Sex & Love by Stanley Wells
• New Boy by Tracy Chevalier
• Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
• Wenn Du geredet hättest, Desdemona? by Christine Brueckner
• Monstrous Little Voices by Jonathan Barnes, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Emma Newman, Foz Meadows, and Kate Heartfield