ENGLISH CLASSICS. EDITED BY WM. J. ROLFE, LITT. D. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, 56 cents per volume: Paper, 40 cents per volume. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or they will be sent by HARPER & BROTHERS to any address on receipt of price as quoted. If ordered sent by mail, 10 per cent. should be added to the price to cover cost of postage. Copyright, 1877, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 1-27-1932- add erp. CONTENTS. I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY.... II. THE HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE PLAY. "IV.. 66 V.. PAGR 80 112 I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY. King Henry the Fifth, in the form in which we now have it, was first published in the folio of 1623, where it occupies pages 69-95 in the division of "Histories." A mutilated and incomplete quarto edition had been printed in 1600 with the following title-page : THE CRONICLE | History of Henry the fift, | With his battell fought at Agin Court in France. Togither with Auntient | Pistoll. As it hath bene sundry times playd by the Right honorable | the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. |. LONDON | Printed by Thomas Creede, for Tho. Millington, and Iohn Busby. And are to be sold at his house in Carter Lane, next | the Powle head. 1600. This edition appears to have been hastily gotten up, and was probably compiled from short-hand notes taken at the theatre. It was reprinted in 1602 "by Thomas Creede, for Thomas Pauier," and "sold at his shop in Cornhill, at the signe of the Cat and Parrets, neare the Exchange ;" and again in 1608, "Printed for T. P." The folio must be considered the only authority for the text, though the quartos are occasionally of service in the correction of typographical errors. The date of the play is fixed by a passage in the Chorus of the last act: "Were now the general of our gracious empress As in good time he may-from Ireland coming," etc. This evidently refers to Lord Essex, who went to Ireland, April 15, 1599, and returned to London, September 28, of the same year. Unless the passage was a later insertion, which is not probable, the play must have been written between those dates. It is not mentioned by Meres in 1598 in the list which includes Richard II., Richard III., Henry IV., and King John.* II. THE HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE PLAY. Shakespeare took the leading incidents of his Henry IV. and Henry V. from an anonymous play entitled "The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth," which was written at * See the extract from Meres's Palladis Tamia, in our ed. of A Midsummer-Night's Dream, p. 9. |