King Richard III

'Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York.' At the end of the Wars of the Roses, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, deformed, brilliant and utterly without conscience, confides his plans to the audience and then carries them out: he arranges the death of his brother Clarence, woos the widow of a prince he killed, has his young nephews, the princes in the Tower, murdered, and seizes the crown. But his allies desert him, the ghosts of his victims visit him on the eve of battle, and at Bosworth Field he cries, 'A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!'

Written around 1592 or 1593, the play completes Shakespeare's first cycle of English history plays and created one of the great villains of the stage. Historians argue that the real Richard was far less wicked, but the play's portrait has proved unforgettable. Read also Macbeth, and see Shakespeare's life.

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.