Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play, and is considered among the most powerful and influential works of world literature, with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others." It was one of Shakespeare's most popular works during his lifetime, and still ranks among his most performed, topping the performance list of the Royal Shakespeare Company and its predecessors in Stratford-upon-Avon since 1879. It has inspired many other writers-from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Charles Dickens to James Joyce and Iris Murdoch-and has been described as "the world's most filmed story after Cinderella."