Reading Order
Romeo & JulietShakespeare Comedies and Romances Reading Order
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (c. 1594–1596) is the most famous love story in the English language — a five-day tragedy about two young people from feuding families in Verona who fall in love and die as a result, whose names have become universal shorthand for doomed romance. The play has been performed continuously for four centuries, adapted into opera, ballet, film, and musical, and is typically the first Shakespeare play most readers encounter.
Where to start
Romeo and Juliet
Complete Romeo & Juliet Book List
- 1Buy
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare·1597·The source text — best read in a good modern edition with explanatory notes (the Arden Shakespeare, Oxford World's Classics, or Folger Shakespeare Library editions are all excellent). The play moves fast: all five acts take place over five days. - 2Buy
A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare·1600·Shakespeare's romantic comedy about love's irrationality — written at roughly the same time as Romeo and Juliet and often read as a comic counterpart, where the same confusion and passion that kill the lovers in Verona lead to reconciliation in the enchanted forest outside Athens. - 3Buy
Othello
William Shakespeare·1603·Shakespeare's tragedy of jealousy and love — the Moorish general Othello, manipulated into believing his wife Desdemona has been unfaithful; shares Romeo and Juliet's interest in how quickly love can be destroyed by external manipulation and internal insecurity. - 4Buy
Much Ado About Nothing
William Shakespeare·1600·Shakespeare's comedy about Beatrice and Benedick — a battle-of-wits romance that also features the near-destruction of the relationship between Hero and Claudio by a false accusation of infidelity; the comic counterpart to the tragedy in Romeo and Juliet. - 5Buy
West Side Story
Arthur Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (music)·1957·The most celebrated theatrical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet — transplanting the play to 1950s New York, with Puerto Rican and white gangs in place of the Montagues and Capulets. The 1961 film won ten Academy Awards; Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake is also acclaimed. - 6Buy
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green·2012·Two teenagers with cancer fall in love — Green's YA novel is one of the most successful contemporary inheritors of the Romeo and Juliet tradition: a love story about young people whose death is certain, structured to maximize the poignancy of their brief happiness. - 7Buy
Warm Bodies
Isaac Marion·2010·A zombie who begins to feel human emotions falls in love with a human girl — Marion's novel is an explicit Romeo and Juliet retelling in a post-apocalyptic zombie world; lighter in tone than the play but sharing its meditation on how love transforms the lover.
Romeo & Juliet — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Romeo and Juliet really about love or about something else?
Romeo and Juliet is about love, but love in a context that makes love impossible — the feud between the Montagues and Capulets is the play's real subject, and the young lovers are its most eloquent victims. Shakespeare shows love as genuine and intense, but also as reckless and self-destructive: Romeo falls in love with Juliet twenty minutes after declaring his undying passion for Rosaline, and both lovers' decisions — the secret marriage, the plan with the sleeping potion — are driven by passion rather than prudence. The play mourns both the lovers and the world that made their love fatal, and its final scene — the Prince's rebuke to both families over the bodies of their children — makes clear that adult society's hatred has destroyed what was most beautiful in the younger generation.
How long does the action of Romeo and Juliet take place?
The play's action takes place over approximately five days: Act 1 on Sunday (the Capulet feast, where Romeo and Juliet meet); Act 2 on Sunday night (the balcony scene, the marriage plans); Act 3 on Monday (Mercutio's death, Tybalt's death, Romeo's banishment, the consummation of the marriage); Act 4 on Tuesday (the plan with the sleeping potion, Juliet takes it Thursday night); Act 5 on Thursday night/Friday (Romeo's return, the deaths in the tomb). The speed is deliberate: Shakespeare compresses time to make the tragedy feel as sudden and senseless as falling in love.
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