Word Counts for Shakespeare's Plays


Word counts were calculcated using wc (GNU coreutils) 6.10.

For each play, I stripped out everything apart from the title, 'dramatis personae' sections, character names, stage directions and lines. I did not count the words 'The End' or the phrase 'By William Shakespeare'. The texts used are available at www.gutenberg.org.

All text was taken from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare apart from Pericles, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Edward III.


* Wanna know how many total words there are in all of Shakespeare's plays put together?


Shakespeare PlayWord Count
All's Well That Ends Well24367
Antony & Cleopatra26456
As You Like It22806
The Comedy Of Errors16196
Coriolanus29209
Cymbeline28780
Edward III21050
Hamlet31950
Henry IV Part 125715
Henry IV Part 227625
Henry V27441
Henry VI Part 122770
Henry VI Part 226778
Henry VI Part 325827
Henry VIII25811
Julius Caesar20864
King John21698
King Lear27507
Richard II23291
Richard III31084
Love's Labour's Lost22881
Macbeth18227
Measure For Measure22867
The Merchant of Venice22248
The Merry Wives of Windsor23354
A Midsummer Night's Dream17227
Much Ado About Nothing22444
Othello27860
Pericles, Prince Of Tyre19647
Romeo & Juliette25783
The Taming of the Shrew22153
The Tempest17409
Timon of Athens19628
Titus Andronicus21628
Troilus & Cressida27531
Twelfth Night21147
Two Gentlemen of Verona18287
Two Noble Kinsmen25424
A Winter's Tale25943


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