NoSweatShakespeare is just one of many Shakespeare websites worldwide dedicated to the world’s greatest playwright. Some Shakespeare websites focus on the Bard’s plays, some his sonnets, some his life and era, and some offer a combination of all of these.
Whilst we – of course – think we’re the best all-round Shakespeare website to be found anywhere, we wanted to pay tribute to the entire online Shakespeare ecosystem.
To do just this, we’ve sifted through the many hundreds of websites dedicated to Shakespeare and pulled together the below list of the top 15 Shakespeare websites. Clicking on their name will take you to a page that explains a bit more about what they do, gives you some history about the website along with some stats on their visitors and popularity.
Further down the page we list a further 15 websites that are more study guide and literature focussed but include a decent amount of Shakespeare information too.
The Best Shakespeare Websites:
No Fear Shakespeare
The full text of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets side-by-side with translations into modern English. No Fear Shakespeare is available both online and in book form book stores like barnesandnoble.com.
MIT Shakespeare
The Web’s first edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. This site has offered Shakespeare’s plays and poetry to the Internet community since 1993. Read more about MIT Shakespeare.
Open Source Shakespeare
Since launching in 2003 Open Source Shakespeare attempts to be the best free Web site containing Shakespeare’s complete works. It’s targeted at scholars, thespians, and Shakespeare lovers of every kind. Read more about Open Source Shakespeare.
Shakespeare Online
Microsoft named Shakespeare Online one of the top 10 Internet sites for students, adding that it can be “filed in the where was this when I was a kid? category.” The site is used as a teaching aid in classrooms all over the world, and turned twenty-one years old in 2020.
Play Shakespeare
Read Shakespeare’s plays online. The PlayShakespeare.com team used the First Folio of 1623 and the Globe Edition of 1866 as sources for the texts. PlayShakespeare.com claims to be the only place to find Shakespeare’s text with proper indentation, which preserves the meter.
RSC
They perform Shakespeare’s plays at their theatres in Stratford and London and tour worldwide. Their website is dedicated to their performances but has plenty of information about Shakespeare and his plays, as well as an education section with resources for schools, teachers, and higher education.
Shakespeare.org
This website is run by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, a charity based in Shakespeare’s Stratford with the goal of helping to keep Shakespeare’s story alive.
Folger
The Folger Shakespeare Library, established on Capitol Hill in 1932 as a gift to the American people, is home to a huge collection of First Folios.
My Shakespeare
Explore a handful of Shakespeare’s plays in great detail, offering media-rich, full-text editions, interviews with the characters, performances of key scenes, and contemporary translation to make Shakespeare’s language more approachable.
Bardweb
Bardweb also goes by the name of the Shakespeare Resource Center. You’ll find here collected links from all over the World Wide Web to help you discover William Shakespeare, along with articles on Shakespeare’s life, era, and performances.
Absolute Shakespeare
Absolute Shakespeare bill themselves as the essential resource for William Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets, poems, quotes, biography, and the legendary Globe Theatre.
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
As the name suggests, this site deals specifically with Shakespeare’s sonnets. All 154 sonnets are provided with a descriptive commentary attached to each one giving explanations of difficult and unfamiliar words and phrases.
Shakespeare Authorship
Many books and articles have been written arguing that someone other than William Shakespeare wrote his many plays, sonnets, and poems. Shakespeare Authorship offers a refreshing take on the authorship debate.
Other Shakespeare Websites
WilliamShakespeare.net
William-Shakespeare.info
The Best Study Guide Websites That Include Shakespeare
SparkNotes
SparkNotes is a resource for students to turn to when you want to understand a book in-depth. Their mission is to help students understand books, write papers, and study for tests.
Grade Saver
GradeSaver claims to be one of the top editing and literature sites in the world, and with the amount of content available on their website it’s hard to doubt them.
CliffsNotes
CliffsNotes launched their study guide business in 1958 with a line of 16 Shakespeare study guides. Since then they’ve grown into one of the largest study resources around, and offer a website full of free articles
SuperSummary
LitChapter
CourseHero
SoftSchools
And that’s our list of the best Shakespeare websites out there, and the best general literature and study guide websites that feature Shakespeare.
What’s your take on this list – have you used any other websites that have great Shakespeare information? Join in the conversation and let us know in the comments section below!
I think you forgot about the inclusion of ‘Internet Shakespeare Editions’ which has published high-quality materials on Shakespeare’s illustrated works. Many notable scholars consider it a great academic resource for the online digital medium.