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Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, As you like it, The Taming of the Shrew, All's Well that Ends Well, Twelfth Night, A Winter's Tale, King John, the First Part of Henry the Sixth, Henry the Eighth, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline. The other Folios appeared in the years: 1632, 1664(this edition is augmented by Pericles and 6 other spurious plays) and 1685. Hemynge and Condell, the friends of Shakspeare, who edited the first Folio, of the thirty-six plays which their edition contained, printed twenty-eight after manuscripts and eight after Quartos already existing. Of the former yet ten pieces exist in old Quartos, but they are not taken use of in the Folio-Edition.
The following editors and commentators are chiefly worth noting: Rowe(1709), Pope (1725 and 1728), Theobald(1733 and 1740), Johnson(1765), Steevens(1766), Reed(1785), Malone(1785), Chalmers, Singer, Knight(1839), Collier(1842), Halliwell's magnificent edition (1852 ff.), Dyce(1858), Clark and Wright(the so-called Cambridge edition 1863 ff.), Dyce (second edition 1868), and in Germany Delius(1854 ff.). Add.: Bowdler's Family Shakspeare and the editions for schools by Schmidt(Königsberg) and Meurer(Cologne).
Shakspeare's works have been very often translated in Germany, especially by: Wieland (1762), Schlegel and Tieck, Simrock, Ortlepp, Keller and Rapp, Bodenstedt, Dingelstedt, Ulrici (the Schlegel-Tieck edition revised). The Perkin's Shakspeare(Second Folio of 1632 with written marginal notes) ed. Collier 1852 under the title: Notes and Emendations to Shakspeare's Plays, is not genuine.
Shakspeare’s plays are divided into three different groups: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Among the former(14) one has distinguished for their perfection: What you Will, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As you like it, The Tempest; The Merry Wives of Windsor are supposed to be written upon the special command of Queen Elizabeth*).
The ten plays, taken from English history(Histories) form a closely connected series: King John at the head, to be called, as it were, a prologue, then the history of a century in eight plays from Richard II(1377— 1399) to Richard III(1483— 1485), finally as an epilogue King Henry VIII. Out of the third division above all five great tragedies are to be mentioned: Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth. They are nearly reached in value by the three Roman tragedies: Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus.
About the order in which Shakspeare's plays made their appearance, little that is decisive is known; and the most ardent investigator of the subject, after a laborious search for contemporary notices of, and allusions to Shakspeare's dramas, and for indications in his works themselves, the celebrated commentator Malone has not ventured to designate the result of his labour by any other title than:«An attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays of Shakspeare were writtend.
*) See Skottowe's Life etc. p. 16.&The delicacy of even«virgin queen) was not shocked by the grossness of that keen-witted voluptuary Falstaff“ and so thoroughly did Elizabeth relish the humour of the two parts of Henry the Fourth, that she commanded the appearance of Falstaff under the influence of love. To this incident in the poet's life the world is indebted for the Merry Wives of Windsor; a play, it is said, written in the short space of a fortnight. But Shakspeare did not receive any further gracious marks) of Queen Elizabeth's favour.