Richard III (play)

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The Tragedy of Richard the Third, often shortened to Richard III, is a play by William Shakespeare, which depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England. It was probably written c. 1592–1594. It is labelled a history in the First Folio and is usually considered one. In the quarto edition and elsewhere it is listed as a tragedy given its meditations on conscience, decision making, and death. Richard III concludes Shakespeare's first tetralogy which also contains Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, and Henry VI, Part 3. It is the second longest play in the Shakespearean canon by word count and the fourth longest by number of lines, as well as the longest of the First Folio. Hamlet, otherwise the longest, is shorter than its quarto counterpart. The play is often abridged for brevity, and peripheral characters removed. In such cases, extra lines are often invented or added from elsewhere to establish the nature of the characters' relationships...

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