•Why it earns a slot
This text preserves Charles Kean's 1859 acting edition of Hamlet, complete with stage directions, cast list, and scene-by-scene explanatory notes, making it a rare document of how Victorian theatre professionals staged and interpreted Shakespeare's most performed tragedy.
Prince Hamlet of Denmark, urged by his murdered father's ghost to take revenge on his uncle Claudius who has seized the throne and married Hamlet's mother, delays and schemes while feigning madness. His plan to expose Claudius through a staged play succeeds in confirming the king's guilt, but the resulting chain of violence destroys nearly everyone at court. The play ends with Hamlet finally killing Claudius, but only after Ophelia has drowned, Laertes and Gertrude have been poisoned, and Hamlet himself dies from a venomed blade.
This distillation is written from the freely available original, which is always the better read when you have the time: gutenberg.org.