A Gift for Shakespeare Geek Readers : Words, Words, Words

I love it when my kids play Shakespeare puzzles. So much so that, as a programmer, I’m often on the hunt for puzzle generator programs so that I can fill in my own subject matter.

Well, I found a word search generator recently, and while I get it to the point where I need it for my kids, I thought I’d share it with you all. Of course, you get the hard version. Ready?

O V R U K U E A F D C D N O L V D A T T
R R O D E C C L E O P A T R A U E I X L
T O D U N C A N R R R H T C A S S I O V
L G E R T R U D E M E T R I U S D E H K
C R R M T A E C O L T O I Y F T E A M E
O E I V O L I C L E S S P N D O M C A T
C X G L I R U O U A E P I H B L O T C R
V M O A T L E A L O C U E U E R N L D O
L A N A U I R I C R U C B T N L A O U I
E C E L C I N E I L O K A R E U I S F Y
H B R O R D X D D A L D N K D O T A F I
S E I I E T S G R N G L Q I I O S F T I
C T L V M R H A U D A O U L C I A I L C
D H U E A O E R N O A S O J K T B A A Y
A N T O N Y R U Y S I V Y U S A E I B S
N M A I O A M F I S N F Z L U R S V Y U
B B S O R D I L L E A R A I T O F I T A
T R U R E G A N B H T F I E U H R L I T
O S S L B I C A S S I U S T R A A O R L
S E R S O A D D R T T O L I B C D R F U

So, here’s the catch – I’m not telling you the words I’ve hidden in it. What I will tell you is this:

• It’s all character names.
• There’s 50 of them. All one word each, I haven’t gotten tricky with stuff like “Richard III” or things like that. Kings and other titled people, if I’ve included any (hint hint), would be represented by their single identifiable name. So for instance “Duke of Cornwall” would show up as Cornwall. If he’s in there. Which he’s not.
• Not all the plays are represented, and the plays that are represented are not all represented evenly – some have half a dozen or more entries, some have just one or two.
• Since I made the list off the top of my head, long time readers get a bonus in knowing which plays I’m most familiar with and more likely to go to for content 🙂

This is not a contest, there is no prize. What I will do, however, is announce the name of the winner in a future blog post, if people want to play it like that. So you can proudly declare yourself a geek on a number of levels, and show all your friends. Whoever sends me back the list of 50 names first will be declared the winner. I’m not going to require you send me a scanned copy of the puzzle where you found all the names, I’ll assume that if you get the list right you must have found them all.

Have fun!