Available in the App Store is the First Folio:
This is an exact facsimile reproduction of the large and handsome book known simply as the ‘First Folio’, the earliest collected edition of Shakespeare’s ‘Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies’. It was printed in 1623, seven years after his death. This eBookTreasures edition is taken from an exceptional copy held at the British Library.
Eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays had already been published in the small, cheap format known as quartos during his lifetime, including such favourites as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. The first Folio added another eighteen, including Macbeth, The Tempest and Twelfth Night all of which are indispensable to the modern repertory. Without the First Folio only half of Shakespeare’s dramatic output would have survived.
I hit the “Buy” button at ebooktreasures, and this work seems to be available to Australians as well. 🙂
It’s AUD 24.99, but I was still tempted. However, it’s also nearly half a GB. That’s a lot on a mobile device. Different if you need to study or perform the plays, perhaps, but I read them for pleasure, and this version would be more a souvenir and curiosity than a priority.
Definitely of the “curiosity” genre if you aren’t a Shakespeare scholar who needs a lightweight portable copy (It’s $20 in the US)
Part of the size is probably the included audio. And the images of each page for the “exact facsimile reproduction”
For just reading purposes, all of his works are free from Project Gutenberg, unless you need a specific modern edition for a class or something.
Readdle has a free/paid iOS app with all his works – the free version even has a concordance that weighs a lot less than my 20 year old paper Shakespeare concordance 🙂 . (I don’t do Android but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a version for that.)
We’re the developers for this. It’s mainly almost 500Mb because it’s 900 pages and we made every page as high-resolution as we could. You can buy it in all iBookStore territories and also just get individual plays much cheaper. Just so as you know…
If you just want a text, Gutenberg is best, but if you want to see the original text as it first appeared, this is it.