Full text of 11 major editions of Shakespeare's works, and related works.
Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare includes the complete text of eleven major editions of Shakespeare's works, from the First Folio (1623) to the Cambridge edition of 1863-6. It also includes twenty-four separate contemporary printings of individual plays, selected apocrypha and related works, and more than 100 adaptations, sequels, and burlesques from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
Browse the downstairs stacks of Centennial Library to find full text plays, focusing on these call numbers:
Remember, not every book in these call number ranges will be a play script. Some may be books about drama or plays in these languages.
Play scripts may or may not not include the word “play” in their title or subject descriptions. Many plays (but not all!) do include the word “drama” in their subject descriptions.
Type a keyword that describes your topic or subject into the search box, like “families” or “sisters” or “Asian American”, and also include the word “drama." Your results will NOT be comprehensive, but should give you a place to start.
A single play can be published as a book. For example, the library owns An American Daughter by Wendy Wasserstein. This book contains only the script of An American Daughter and nothing else.
Several plays by the same author are often published as a book. For example, The Old Neighborhood: Three Plays contains a total of three plays, all of them written by David Mamet.
Collections of plays written by different authors are also often published as a book. The plays in such collections may be connected by nationality, date, style, cast, or other factors. For example, the plays collected in Women on the Verge: 7 Avant-Garde American Plays are connected by the gender and nationality of their authors and by the fact that they are considered avant-garde plays.
Modified from Theater Arts: Finding Plays in the Library by Pepperdine Libraries