Shakespeare didn't invent his own stories and characters; he borrowed them.

Shakespeare didn't invent his own stories and characters; he borrowed them.  

Here's the source material for all 38 of his plays, in alphabetical order: 

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1. All's Well That Ends Well (1602)

Based on the ninth tale of the third day in Giovanni Boccaccio’s masterpiece, the Decameron.

Completed in 1353, the Decameron is a collection of one hundred short stories told by friends over ten days during the Black Death.

2. Antony and Cleopatra (1606)

Based on the Life of Marcus Antonius, from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. It's a collection of 48 mini-biographies of important figures from Roman and Greek history, written in the 2nd century AD and translated into English by Thomas North in 1580.

3. As You Like It (1599)

Based on Thomas Lodge’s 1587 prose work Rosalynde Euphues Golden Legacie, which itself was inspired by the Medieval ballad The Tale of Gamelyn, from around 1350

4. The Comedy of Errors (1595)

A modern interpretation of The Brothers Menaechmus, written by the great Roman comedic playwright Plautus (254-184 BC). This play had been translated into English in 1594.

5. Coriolanus (1607)

Based on the dramatically told Life of Coriolanus, again from North’s translation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.

6. Cymbeline (1609)

Inspired by myths from Celtic Legend, along with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (1136) and Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577). Some plot elements are also lifted from Boccaccio’s Decameron.

7. Hamlet (1600)

Comes from the Old Norse Saga of King Rolf Kraki.

This was incorporated into the Life of Amleth by the Danish writer Saxo Grammaticus (13th century), and from there to Francois de Belleforest’s Histoires Tragiques (1570).

8. Henry IV, Parts I & II (1597)

As with all his English history plays, the primary source was Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1st ed. 1577, 2nd ed. 1587), though Holinshed’s work did take from Edward Hall’s The Union of the Two Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York (1548).

9. Henry V (1598)

Holinshed’s Chronicles, again. This was, by the way, a comprehensive narrative history of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Another possible source was an anonymous Elizabethan play called The Famous Victories of Henry V (1594)

10. Henry VI, Parts I, II, & III (1590-91)

Based on specific parts from both Holinshed’s Chronicles and Hall’s The Union of the Two Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York.