Discover a wealth of information on all of Shakespeare’s plays, including plot synopses, history, videos of plays in performance and details of our past productions.

A list of all Shakespeare's plays by genre: comedies, tragedies & histories, with links to in-depth information, from plot synopses to famous scenes.

We don't know exactly when Shakespeare started writing plays, but they were probably being performed in London by 1592. Shakespeare is likely to have written his final plays just a couple of years before his death in 1616.

Explore our interactive timeline to find out more about the kings Shakespeare wrote about in his history plays.

Many words and phrases in the English language were first written down by William Shakespeare in his plays and poetry.

Discover more about the life and times of William Shakespeare, from his birth in 1564 through to his death 52 years later in 1616.

Shakespeare published a quarto of 154 sonnets in 1609. He wrote the poems throughout his career.

We regularly stage plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries - playwrights who lived and worked at the same time as Shakespeare.

There are themes in Shakespeare's plays that return again and again, such as love, power, revenge, mistaken identity, insanity and free will.