Asimov organizes the plays not in the usual way – as tragedies, comedies, and histories – but regionally, as follows: The last two categories are treated broadly; "Italian" applies to neighbouring countries, and both Hamlet and Macbeth are listed with "The English Plays".

Within each category, the plays are arranged according to internal (historical) chronology, making allowance for the several not based on actual events.

Asimov notes how much is real history, and describes who the historical people were, where applicable.

It being "the most straightforwardly mythological" and tracing "farthest backward (if only dimly so) in history," Asimov includes in his regional categorisation, beginning with the "Greek", Shakespeare’s first narrative poem, Venus and Adonis (1593).

Nearly 800 pages long plus an index, the work was originally published in two volumes; Greek, Roman and Italian in the first and 'The English Plays' in the second.