Classic Shakespearean history play. According to Wikipedia: "Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591, depicting the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England.[1]The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified as such. Occasionally, however, as in the quarto edition, it is termed a tragedy. Richard III concludes Shakespeare's first tetralogy (also containing Henry VI parts 1-3). After Hamlet, it is the longest play in the canon and is the longest of the First Folio, whose version of Hamlet is shorter than its Quarto counterpart. The play is rarely performed unabridged; often certain peripheral characters are removed entirely, most commonly Margaret. In such instances extra lines are often invented or added from elsewhere in the sequence in order to establish the nature of characters' relationships."