William Shakespeare
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The full script in Final Draft, Word & PDF
Falstaff tries to seduce two married women for their money and is repeatedly humiliated by their schemes in this town farce.
PDFs Only
$4.99
- ✓ Stageplay PDF (117 pp.)
- ✓ Screenplay PDF (99 pp.)
- ✓ Instant download
Full Package
$12.99
- ✓ Final Draft (.fdx)
- ✓ Microsoft Word + RTF
- ✓ Screenplay + Stageplay PDFs
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- Genre
- Comedy
- Written
- c. 1597–1600
- Setting
- Windsor
- Scenes
- 23
- Speaking roles
- 24
- Uncut running time
- ~2h 40m
What happens in The Merry Wives of Windsor
Sir John Falstaff, short of money, decides to court two wealthy Windsor wives, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, and sends each an identical love letter. The women compare letters and decide to teach him a lesson. Mistress Ford's jealous husband, disguised as 'Master Brook', enlists Falstaff's help to catch his own wife.
Falstaff is smuggled out of the Ford house in a laundry basket and thrown into the Thames, and later escapes the house disguised as an old woman. Meanwhile three suitors compete for the hand of Anne Page, helped and hindered by the Host, the Welsh parson Evans and Mistress Quickly. A final trick in Windsor Park concludes both plots.
See the formatting
The first page of Act I, exactly as it appears in the files you download.
The biggest roles
Share of the play's spoken words, counted from the script. 24 characters speak; 9 of them have under 1% of the text — natural candidates for doubling.
| Role | Share of the text | Speeches |
|---|---|---|
| Falstaff | | 143 |
| Ford | | 104 |
| Mistress Page | | 109 |
| Mistress Quickly | | 82 |
| Sir Hugh Evans | | 93 |
| Mistress Ford | | 88 |
| Slender | | 59 |
| Page | | 77 |
For directors
Falstaff holds 17.3% of the words, but the play is built on an ensemble: Ford (12.0%), Mistress Page (11.9%), Mistress Quickly (10.4%), Sir Hugh Evans (8.5%) and Mistress Ford (6.1%) all have substantial parts, and eight roles are over 5%. Twenty-four speaking roles across 23 scenes suits a mid-sized cast. Uncut it takes about 2 hours 40 minutes, and its largely prose text demands good comic timing.
Cutting notes
- The Germans' horse-stealing subplot in 4.3 and 4.5 is widely cut; the surviving texts treat it inconsistently.
- The Welsh and French dialect comedy of Evans and Caius is often trimmed because the jokes are hard to follow for a modern audience.
- The early Anne Page courtship scenes can be condensed if the main focus is Falstaff and the wives.
For teachers
Typical topics include middle-class town life, jealousy, the comic downfall of Falstaff, and gender roles, with the wives driving the action. Students often compare this Falstaff with the character in the Henry IV plays, and look at the dialects of Evans and Dr Caius. Commonly taught scenes include the laundry-basket episode in 3.3 and the final scene in Windsor Park in 5.5.
Questions
Is this the complete, uncut text of The Merry Wives of Windsor?
Yes. Every file contains the full play — 23 scenes and about 21,300 spoken words. Cut it yourself in Word or Final Draft to fit your running time.
What is the difference between the stageplay and screenplay layouts?
The stageplay layout indents stage directions and sets dialogue full-width, like a theatre script. The screenplay layout follows film conventions: scene headings and action flush left, character names centred, dialogue in a narrower column. Both tiers include both layouts as PDFs; the Full Package adds editable Final Draft and Word files of each.
Can I use this The Merry Wives of Windsor script for a production or a class?
Yes. Shakespeare's plays are in the public domain, so there are no royalties to pay for staging them. Edit, stage, film or teach with these files.
How do I receive the files?
Right after checkout you land on a private download page, and the link is also emailed to you. It keeps working, so you can re-download any time.
