Standard Ebooks

The Winter’s Tale

William Shakespeare

Description

King Leontes of Sicilia accuses his wife, Queen Hermione, of infidelity with his childhood friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia. Consumed by irrational jealousy, Leontes becomes obsessed with proving Hermione’s supposed adultery and orders her imprisonment before putting her on trial, where she steadfastly maintains her innocence.

Leontes’ baseless accusations lead to the destruction of his family: Hermione dies of grief, her newborn daughter is abandoned in a distant land, and her son, Mamillius, dies due to the distress caused by his father’s madness. Leontes’ abandoned daughter, Perdita, grows up as a shepherdess, unaware of her royal heritage. Sixteen years later, she returns to Sicilia.

This Standard Ebooks edition is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.

Read free

This ebook is thought to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. It may still be under copyright in other countries. If you’re not located in the United States, you must check your local laws to verify that this ebook is free of copyright restrictions in the country you’re located in before accessing, downloading, or using it.

Download for ereaders

Read online

A brief history of this ebook

  1. Update boilerplate CSS

  2. [Editorial] re-enter -> reenter

  3. Adjust song formatting

  4. Tweak semantics

  5. Update se.css to new standards

More details

Sources

Page scans

Other sources

Improve this ebook

Anyone can contribute to make a Standard Ebook better for everyone!

To report typos, typography errors, or other corrections, see how to report errors.

If you’re comfortable with technology and want to contribute directly, check out this ebook’s GitHub repository and our contributors section.

You can also donate to Standard Ebooks to help fund continuing improvement of this and other ebooks.