As I launch into my first big personal project for 2017, the Roughly Chronological Re-read, I’d like to acknowledge the amount of guesswork that’s going into this. There is no clear chronology for Shakespeare’s plays. I don’t claim to have discovered one. What I have done is read a lot of other people’s suggestions and drawn up a reading order. I don’t claim that my decisions are anything other than arbitrary. You’re welcome to argue the toss with me. I’ll probably argue it with myself as I go.

So here’s the order I’m planning to use:

Week 1: Two Gentlemen of Verona

Week 2: The Comedy of Errors

Week 3: Henry VI Part II

Week 4: Henry VI Part III

Week 5: Titus Andronicus

Week 6: Richard III

Week 7: The Taming of the Shrew

Week 8: Henry VI Part 1

Week 9: Love’s Labours Lost

Week 10: Romeo & Juliet

Week 11: Richard II

Week 12: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Week 13: King John

Week 14: The Merchant of Venice

Week 15: The Merry Wives of Windsor

Week 16: Henry IV Part 1

Week 17: Henry IV Part 2

Week 18: Much Ado About Nothing

Week 19: As You Like It

Week 20: Henry V

Week: 21: Julius Caesar

Week 22: Hamlet

Week 23: Twelfth Night

Week 24: Troilus & Cressida

Week 25: All’s Well That Ends Well

Week 26: Othello

Week 27: Measure for Measure

Week 28: King Lear

Week 29: Timon of Athens

Week 30: Macbeth

Week 31: Anthony & Cleopatra

Week 32: Pericles

Week 33: Coriolanus

Week 34: Cymbeline

Week 35: A Winter’s Tale

Week 36: The Tempest

Week 37: Henry VIII

Week 38: The Two Noble Kinsmen