All's Well That Ends Well

William ShakespeareProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7

Word count: 138K words
Chapters: 14

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.All's Well That Ends Well by William ShakespeareAuthor: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Dec 1, 1997

Editor's review

All's Well That Ends Well is often grouped among Shakespeare's "problem plays" because it sets a fairy-tale frame of "cure for a husband" against an almost cold negotiation of gender power. Helena wins a marriage through her medical skill but gains no acknowledgment from her husband, so she stages a "bed trick" completed through substitution of identity; the ending is called happy but leaves moral discomfort. Most rewarding are Helena's soliloquies and court dialogue: she uses humble wording to seize initiative and advances step by step in action, making "virtue" and "calculation" hard to separate. This public-domain electronic edition makes it easy to compare lines and stage business. Read it alongside Measure for Measure to observe Shakespeare's late treatment of marriage, class, and female agency; if new to the play, learn the plot first, then return to the original to savor irony and puns, and avoid being misled by the title's promise of a happy ending.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in Shakespeare's "problem plays" and gender issues
English literature students who need to analyze marriage and class themes
Theater researchers and actors seeking lines for complex female roles
Advanced readers who have read Shakespeare's comedies and want to move into atypical works

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting light romantic comedy who are uncomfortable with an ironic ending
Beginners in English who struggle with long early modern English sentences
Readers who want clear moral conclusions and dislike ambiguous texts

Reading tips

Read a plot summary first to clarify the key "bed trick" episode, then return to the original to see how Shakespeare conceals and hints through language.
Focus on Helena's soliloquies and her dialogue with the Countess, marking how humility and initiative alternate in her wording.
After the ending, look back at Act I and compare Helena's self-presentation with her actual actions.
Read alongside Measure for Measure and list similarities and differences in marriage transactions and women's situations.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Why is this play called a "problem play"?

Because it places a comic reunion ending beside moral conflicts that are hard to resolve: Helena completes the marriage through substitution of identity, the husband's change is not fully convincing, and the "happy" ending feels more like a contract. Readers cannot easily judge who is right or wrong, and this ambiguity is the source of the "problem play" label.

Is Helena a virtuous figure or a scheming character?

The text deliberately keeps this ambiguous. She pursues love actively and saves lives through medicine, showing courage and intelligence; but the bed trick she designs involves deception and borrowed identity. Shakespeare offers no unified judgment, and readers can weigh her choices and their cost against the marriage-property and class background of the time.

What should I keep in mind when reading this electronic edition?

The public-domain electronic text has no modern annotations, so slang and puns in early modern English may be obstacles. It is best to read with an annotated print or online edition, and at key passages first use a Chinese translation to grasp the general sense, then return to the original to appreciate the wording. Also note differences in act division and punctuation across versions.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

William Shakespeare Author · English · 1564–1616

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was the greatest playwright, poet and actor of the English Renaissance. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, he is known as the "Bard of Avon." He wrote roughly thirty-seven to thirty-nine plays, one hundred and fifty-four sonnets and narrative poems. His representative works include Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. His works span tragedy, comedy and history play, distinguished by rich, poetic language and profound characterization. His explorations of human nature, power, love and fate have had a lasting influence, and his works have been translated into many languages and circulated widely around the world.