The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Every play and poem Shakespeare wrote, in one enormous volume: all the tragedies from Hamlet to Macbeth to King Lear, comedies from Much Ado About Nothing to Twelfth Night, the histories, the romances, plus the sonnets and narrative poems. It's the complete working life of the writer who did more to shape the English language than anyone before or since.

Listening has a real advantage here, because Shakespeare never wrote a word intended for silent reading. These are scripts. The verse only fully makes sense in the ear, where the rhythm carries meaning that the page hides. At over a hundred hours, nobody takes this straight through, so treat it as a library, drop in on whichever play you've always meant to know, and let the lines do what they were built to do.

At roughly 939,700 words, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare runs about 104½ hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.