The Merry Wives of Windsor

By William Shakespeare

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life. It has been adapted for the opera on occasions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WS
• Release date: Sep 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9782291049869

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

Reviews for The Merry Wives of Windsor

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this tale. The wives are my heroes and I thought the interplay between them and their husbands was honest and hilarious. I loved that they were not taken in for a minute by Falstaff's flattery. It truly is a very respectful view of women and their intelligence, I wish more modern authors had that respect.

[lyzadanger · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this the most difficult of the comedies to read (lots of vernacular). Get a good edition with proper footnotes (endnotes would be cumbersome for this one).

[birdie.newborn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Falstaff remains a comic figure of large proportions even without Prince Hal as a countercharacter. He schemes as usual, only this time he's the dupe and doesn't know it.

[seaward_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Fourth Folio in turn served as the base for the series of eighteenth-century editions of Shakespeare's plays. Nicholas Rowe used the Fourth Folio text as the foundation of his 1709 edition, and subsequent editors — Pope, Theobald, etc. — both adapted and reacted to Rowe's text in their own editions. (See: Shakespeare's Editors.)

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This very likable play was supposedly the only time that Shakespeare wrote, not about noble heroes, but the common people of the small town milieu that he was raised in. I wish he had done it more often, for he makes Windsor as a charming a town as Mayberry.

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I don't know it just seemed like a very by the numbers sort of affair to me. None of the characters stood out and the goofy "funny" accents aren't funny.