Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 - Couverture souple

Like many of his contemporaries, including Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare began his career on the stage, eventually rising to become part-owner of Lord Chamberlain's Men, a popular dramatic company of his day, and of the storied Globe Theatre in London.

Extremely popular in his lifetime, Shakespeare s works continue to resonate more than three hundred years after his death. His plays are performed more often than any other playwright's, have been translated into every major language in the world, and are studied widely by scholars and students.

Cedric Watts is an authority on Joseph Conrad and the author of numerous books and articles on Conrad including Joseph Conrad: A Literary Life (1989), A Preface to Conrad (2nd edition 1993), and Joseph Conrad (1994).
Keith Carabine, Senior Honorary Research Fellow, University of Kent at Canterbury, and Chair of the Joseph Conrad Society (UK), is the author of The Life and Art: A Study of Conrad's 'Under Western Eyes' (1996) and the literary editor of Wordsworth Classics. He has also written on Sherwood Anderson, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Wright Morris and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Cedric Watts is an authority on Joseph Conrad and the author of numerous books and articles on Conrad including Joseph Conrad: A Literary Life (1989), A Preface to Conrad (2nd edition 1993), and Joseph Conrad (1994).

This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive Introduction and Notes by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English Literature, University of Sussex.

In Henry IV, Part 1, the King is in a doubly ironic position. His rebellion against Richard II was successful, but now he himself is beset by rebels, led by the charismatic Harry Hotspur. The King’s son, Prince Hal, seems to be more concerned with the pleasures of the tavern world and the company of the fat rogue, Falstaff, than with concerns of state. Eventually, however, Hal proves a courageous foe of the rebels.

This history play is lively in its interplay of political intrigue and boisterous comedy, subtle in the connections between high statecraft and low craftiness, exuberant in its range of vivid characters, and memorable in its thematic concern with honour, loyalty and the quest for power.

In Henry IV, Part 2, the King is ailing, Falstaff is ageing, and the kingdom itself, where rebellion is still rife, seems diseased or debilitated. The comedy has a melancholy undertone, and the politics verge on the Machiavellian. Eventually, the resourceful Hal, inheriting the crown as Henry V, must prove that he can uphold justice in the realm.

Here Shakespeare demonstrates a mastery of thematic complexity and subtlety, and shows the price in human terms that may be exacted by political success.