Folger Shakespeare Library

The first play of Shakespeare's "War of the Roses Tetralogy", which includes "Henry VI, Part 2", "Henry VI, Part 3", and "Richard III", "Henry VI, Part 1" is set during the lifetime of King Henry VI and deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political events that lead to the War of the Roses. The play was, written sometime, before 1591 and is, among some of the Bard's earliest works. "Henry VI, Part 1" was, published in the "First...

Powerful rebels are mustering their forces to topple the aging King Henry IV from his throne. Their success seems assured because the dying king cannot depend upon his son and heir Prince Hal. Instead, King Henry relies on the aid of the latest war hero Sir John Falstaff ... and the kingdom is soon in for a big surprise.

"Timon of Athens has struck many readers as rough and unpolished, perhaps even unfinished, though to others it has appeared as Shakespeare's most profound tragic allegory. Described by Coleridge as 'the stillborn twin of King Lear', the play has nevertheless proved brilliantly effective in performance over the past thirty or forty years." "This edition accepts and contributes to the growing scholarly consensus that the play is not Shakespeare's solo...

"This generously annotated updated edition of Coriolanus provides a thorough reconsideration of Shakespeare's remarkable, and probably his last, tragedy. A substantial introduction situates the play within its contemporary social and political contexts - dearth, riots, the struggle over authority between James I and his first parliament, the travails of Essex and Ralegh - and pays particular attention to Shakespeare's shaping of his primary source...

Critical and historical notes accompany Shakespeare's play about two knights, Palamon and Arcite, who fall in love with the same girl, Emelye, turning their previous close friendship into bitter rivalry.

"Dark and violent, Macbeth is also the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's tragedies. Indeed, for 250 years it was performed with grand operatic additions set to baroque music. In his introduction Nicholas Brooke relates the play's changing fortunes to changes within society and the theatre and investigates the sources of its enduring appeal. He examines its many layers of illusion and interprets its linguistic turns and echoes, arguing...

Shakespeare's play about an indecisive Danish prince urged on to revenge against his uncle by his murdered father.

"In Cymbeline, Ancient Britain's female heir to the throne is slandered by a decadent Italian while the Romans invade Britain to retain it as part of their empire. Shakespeare's late romance is full of unpredictable conjunctions that are explored in the comprehensive introduction to this new, fully-illustrated Arden edition. Valerie Wayne takes a transformative look at the play's critical and performance history by examining its attention to gender,...

"This new edition of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor focuses on a theatrical understanding of the play. While emphasising the liveliness of the play in stage terms, David Crane also claims that this citizen comedy needs to be taken much more seriously than in the past, as an expression of Shakespeare's fundamental understanding of human life, conveyed centrally in the character of Falstaff. In the process he also examines Shakespeare's free...

"For this updated critical edition of King Lear, Lois Potter has written a completely new introduction, taking account of recent productions and reinterpretations of the play, with particular emphasis on its afterlife in global performance and adaptation. The edition retains the Textual Analysis of the previous editor, Jay L. Halio, shortened and with a new preface by Brian Gibbons. Professor Halio, accepting that we have two versions of equal authority,...