Books on Shakespeare

About Shakespeare
William Shakespeare Shakespeare's life Religion • Sexuality Bibliography Collaborations • Attribution Criticism Reputation • Influence World Bibliography Folger Shakespeare Library Books on Shakespeare
Poems
Shakespeare's Sonnets Shakespearean sonnet Petrach vs. Shakespeare "A Lover's Complaint" "Venus and Adonis" "The Rape of Lucrece" "The Phoenix and the Turtle"
Plays
Chronology • Early texts First Folio • Second Folio False Folio • Style
Comedies
The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Merry Wives of Windsor Measure for Measure The Comedy of Errors Much Ado About Nothing Love's Labour's Lost A Midsummer Night's Dream The Merchant of Venice As You Like It The Taming of the Shrew All's Well That Ends Well Twelfth Night
Histories
King John • Richard II Henry IV, Part 1 • Part 2 Henry V • Henry VI, Part 1 Henry VI, Part 2 • Part 3 Richard III • Henry VIII
Tragedies
Troilus and Cressida Coriolanus • Titus Andronicus Romeo and Juliet'' Timon of Athens Julius Caesar Macbeth • Hamlet King Lear • Othello Anthony and Cleopatra
Romances
Pericles, Prince of Tyre Cymbeline • The Winter's Tale The Tempest The Two Noble Kinsmen
Editors
Rowe • Pope • Theobald Johnson • Steevens • Malone Chalmers
Contemporaries
Elizabeth I • James I Richard Barnfield Beaumont and Fletcher Geo. Chapman • Henry Chettle Robert Davenport Tho. Dekker • Michael Drayton Thomas Heywood • John Ford Ben Jonson • Thomas Kyd John Lyly • Gervase Markham Christopher Marlowe John Marston • Tho. Middleton Anthony Munday • Tho. Nashe George Peele • William Percy Walter Raleigh • William Rowley Cyril Tourneur • John Webster Geo. Whetstone • Mary Wroth Elizabethan miscellanies
In performance
Shakespeare's Globe Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford Shakespeare Festival Theatre companies Film and TV adaptations BBC Television Shakespeare
Miscellaneous
Shakespeare Apocrypha Authorship question • History Jubilee • Bardolatry Shakespeare's Birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare garden

Books on Shakespeare is an evolving list of online books about English poet and playwright William Shakespeare by poets and literary critics featured on Penny's Poetry Pages.

B

Andrew Becket (1749-1843)

• A Concordance to Shakespeare. London:G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1787.
• Shakespeare's himself again: or the language of the poet asserted. (2 volumes), London: A.J. Valpy, for Law & Whittaker, 1815. Volume I, Volume II

Henry Charles Beeching (1859-1919)

• Introduction to The Sonnnets of Shakespeare. Boston & London: Ginn, 1904.
• The Religion of Shakespeare: The sonnets. 1907.
• William Shakespeare: Player, playmaker, and poet. London: John Murray, 1909.
• Shakespeare and the English Ideal. Norwich, UK: Public Library Committee, 1916.
• The Character of Shakespeare. London: British Academy / Humphrey Milford / Oxford University Press, 1917.

A.C. Bradley (1851-1935)

• Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth. London & New York: Macmillan, 1904

Stopford A. Brooke (1832-1916)

• On Ten Plays of Shakespeare. London: Constable, 1905; New York: Holt, 1905; New York: AMS Press, 1971.
• Ten More Plays of Shakespeare. London: Constable, 1910; New York: Holt, 1910.

C

John Jay Chapman (1862-1933)

• A Glance toward Shakespeare. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1922.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

• Seven Lectures upon Shakespeare and Milton, by the late S.T. Coleridge (edited by J. Payne Collier). London: Chapman & Hall, 1856.
• Lectures on Shakspeare, etc. London: J.M Dent, 1907.

John Payne Collier (1789-1883)

• New Facts Regarding the Life of Shakespeare. London: Thomas Rodd, 1835.
• New Particulars Regarding the Works of Shakespeare. London: Thomas Rodd, 1836.
• Farther Particulars Regarding Shakespeare and His Works. London: T. Rodd, 1839.
• Reasons for a New Edition of Shakespeare's Works. London: T. Whittaker, 1841.
• Memoirs of the principal actors in the plays of Shakespeare. London: Shakespeare Society, 1846.
• Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare's plays. London: Shakespeare Society, 1852; London: Whittaker, 1853.
• Reply to Mr. N.E.S. Hamilton's "Inquiry" into the Imputed Shakespeare Forgeries. London: Bell & Daldy, 1860.
• Trilogy: Conversations between three friends on the emendations of Shakespeare's text contained in Mr. Collier's corrected folio. London: printed by T. Richards, 1874.

John Churton Collins (1848-1908)

• Studies in Shakespeare. Westminster: Constable, 1904.

Ernest Howard Crosby (1856-1907)

• Shakespeare's Attitude Toward the Working Classes. Syracuse, NY: Mason Press, [1902?]
  • also published in Leo Tolstoy, A Critical Essay on Shakespeare. New York & London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1906.

D

Nathan Drake (1766-1836)

• Shakespeare and his Times. (2 volumes), London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1817. Volume I, Volume II
• Memorials of Shakespeare; or, Sketches of his character and genius by various writers (edited) London: Henry Colburn, 1828.

F

Darrell Figgis (1882-1925)

• Shakespeare: A study. London: Dent, 1911.

H

John Wesley Hales (1836-1914)

• From Stratford to London. London: Smith, Elder, 1877.
• Notes and Essays on Shakespeare. London: George Bell, 1884; New York: AMS Press, 1973.
  • also published as Essays and Notes on Shakespeare. London: George Bell, 1892.

Sadakichi Hartmann (1867-1944)

• Shakespeare in Art. Boston: L.C. Page, 1901.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

• Characters of Shakespear's Plays. London: R. Hunter / C. & J. Ollier, 1817; London: Taylor & Hessey, 1818; Boston: Wells & Lilly, 1818.

J

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

• Mr. Johnson's Preface to His Edition of Shakespear's Plays. London: J. & R. Tonson, H. Woodfall, J. Rivington & others, 1765.

K

Fanny Kemble (1809-1893)

• Notes upon Some of Shakespeare's Plays. London: Bentley, 1882.

L

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) / Mary Lamb (1764-1847)

• Tales from Shakespeare: Designed for the use of young persons (by Charles Lamb & Mary Lamb, attributed to Charles Lamb). (2 volumes), London: Thomas Hodgkins at the Juvenile Library, 1807; Philadelphia: Published by Bradford & Inskeep, and New York: Inskeep & Bradford, printed by J. Maxwell, 1813).

Charlotte Lennox (1730-1804)

• Shakespear Illustrated; or, The novels and histories on which the plays of Shakespear are founded. London: A. Millar, 1753; New York: AMS Press, 1973.

M

John William Mackail (1859-1945)

• Shakespeare after Three Hundred Years. London: Published for the British Academy by Humphrey Milford / Oxford University Press, 1916.
• Shakespeare (1923) Inaugural Address to the Australian English Association.
• The Approach to Shakespeare. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1930.

Gerald Massey (1828-1907)

• Shakspeare's Sonnets Never Before Interpreted: His private friends identified: Together with a recovered likeness of himself. London: Longmans Green, 1866.
• The Secret Drama of Shakespeare's Sonnets. London: Richard Clay, 1888.

O

Thomas O'Hagan (1855-1939)

• What Shakespeare is Not. Toronto: Hunter-Rose, 1936.

R

William Richardson (1743-1814)

• A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of Some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters. London: J. Murray / W. Creech, Edinburgh, 1774.
• Cursory Remarks: On tragedy, on Shakespear, and on certain French and Italian poets, principally tragedians. London: W. Owen, 1774; New York: Garland, 1970.
• Essays on Shakespeare's Dramatic Characters of Macbeth, Hamlet, Jaques, and Imogen. London: J. Murray, 1785.
• Essays on Some of Shakespeare's Dramatic Characters. London: J. Murray / S. Highley, 1797.

Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718)

• Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (edited by Samuel Holt Mink). Ann Arbor, MI: Augustan Reprint Society, 1948.

S

Odell Shepard (1864-1967)

• Shakespeare Questions: An outline for the study of the leading plays. Boston: Houghton Mifflin / Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1916.

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

• The Age of Shakespeare. New York: Harper, 1908.
• Shakespeare. London, New York, Toronto, Melbourne: Henry Frowde, 1909.

U

John Upton (1707-1760)

• Critical Observations on Shakespeare. London: G. Hawkins, 1746; Dublin: George & Alexander Ewing, 1747; revised & espanded, London: G. Hawkins, 1748.

W

William Sidney Walker (1795-1846)

• Shakespeare's Versification and its Apparent Irregularities: Explained by examples from early and late English writers. London, J.R. Smith, 1854.
• A Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare: With remarks on his language and that of his contemporaries, together with notes on his plays and poems. (3 volumes), London: J.R. Smith, 1860. Volume I, Volume II'.