King Henry VI, Part 3

The Wars of the Roses rage. Richard, Duke of York, is captured at Wakefield, mocked with a paper crown by Queen Margaret and killed; his sons, led by Edward, take revenge and seize the throne, while the helpless King Henry sits on a molehill in the middle of a battle and longs for the simple life of a shepherd. Among York's sons is the hunchbacked Richard of Gloucester, who reveals in a great soliloquy his ambition to hack his way through blood to the crown.

Written around 1591, the play completes the story of Henry VI and leads straight into Richard III. A shorter version appeared in 1595 as The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York; the text here is the First Folio's of 1623. Read Henry VI, Part 2.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616), born in Stratford-upon-Avon, actor, playwright and shareholder of a London company, wrote about thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets.

The tragedies Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and King Lear, and comedies such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, are here in full, with hundreds of editions and studies from HathiTrust.