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Shakespeare Online


Richard III


The Play

To read the play, click on one of the links below:

Alternately, you can go to Project Gutenberg and download one of three versions of the play, each one available as either a TXT or ZIP file.

Movies

Websites

  • Richard III: A Play for our Time. A ThinkQuest competition site created by three students at what I presume is a secondary school in Germany. This is a great site with a lot of different analyses of the play from different perspectives (psychological, historical, etc.). It's available in both a framed and a no-frames version.
  • Richard III Society. This is the homepage of the founding British branch of the society, the purpose of which "is to promote research into his life and times, and thereby secure a reassessment of his reputation and of his place in history." This is a good place to go to determine how much of what Shakespeare wrote was based on actual historical fact, and how much was written to please his patrons. The Society also has branches in the United States, Canada, and Australia. There's also a Richard III Foundation, Inc., which organizes historical tours of Engalnd, and offers a lot of similar information on their website; other than that, I don't know what connection there is between the two organizations, if any.
  • The History of King Richard the Thirde. Written by Sir Thomas More in 1513, this is probably the main source for Shakespeare's play. Be forewarned that it's written in Middle English, and a little hard to read.
  • Shakespeare RULES! A website created by Joe Dietrich and others at the University of Maryland. It includes a plot summary, a summary of Act V, and the real reason for visiting the site: an "update" of the story featuring characters from the Star Wars mythos.
  • MGM/UA Richard III. This is the official website for the movie with Ian McKellen and Annette Benning. I can't believe this site is still up, since the movie came out quite a while ago; most studios delete their "offical" webpages for a movie once the film is released on video. It does have a few broken links, though.
  • The Trial of Richard III. This was a novel idea that took place, I believe, in 1996: why not actually hold a trial to determine whether or not Richard III was guilty of murder? It was held at the Indiana University School of Law at Bloomington, with none other than U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding. This link takes you to a page where you can listen to (in RealAudio® format) Dean Fred Aman's introduction to the trial (about five minutes) or to the trial itself (about eighty-two minutes), then follow the link to read about the verdict (no, I won't spoil it for you). Great idea.

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First Posted: 1999-10-23 | Last Revised: 1999-10-23