All’s Well That Ends Well

Helena, the orphaned daughter of a famous physician, loves the young nobleman Bertram far above her station. When she cures the ailing King of France, he grants her the reward of any husband she chooses, and she names Bertram, who marries her under protest and then flees to war rather than live as her husband. Refusing to be cast off, Helena follows him and quietly sets about meeting the near-impossible conditions he laid down for accepting her. Shakespeare wrote this uneasy comedy around 1605, and critics have long grouped it among his problem plays for the way it mixes fairy-tale plotting with a hard, unromantic view of love, marriage, and social climbing. Free to read as a PDF and EPUB edition.