Beier, A. L., and Roger Finlay, eds. London 1500–1700: The Making of the Metropolis. New York: Longman, 1986.

  Focusing on the economic and social history of early modern London, these collected essays probe aspects of metropolitan life, including “Population and Disease,” “Commerce and Manufacture,” and “Society and Change.”

  Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930.

  Analyzing in great detail the scant historical data, Chambers’s complex, scholarly study considers the nature of the texts in which Shakespeare’s work is preserved.

  Cressy, David. Education in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Edward Arnold, 1975.

  This volume collects sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and early eighteenth-century documents detailing aspects of formal education in England, such as the curriculum, the control and organization of education, and the education of women.

  Duncan-Jones, Katherine. Shakespeare: An Ungentle Life. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2010.

  This biography, first published in 2001 under the title Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from His Life, sets out to look into the documents from Shakespeare’s personal life—especially legal and financial records—and it finds there a man very different from the one portrayed in more traditional biographies. He is “ungentle” in being born to a lower social class and in being a bit ruthless and more than a bit stingy. As the author notes, “three topics were formerly taboo both in polite society and in Shakespearean biography: social class, sex and money. I have been indelicate enough to give a good deal of attention to all three.” She examines “Shakespeare’s uphill struggle to achieve, or purchase, ‘gentle’ status.” She finds that “Shakespeare was strongly interested in intense relationships with well-born young men.” And she shows that he was “reluctant to divert much, if any, of his considerable wealth towards charitable, neighbourly, or altruistic ends.” She insists that his plays and poems are “great, and enduring,” and that it is in them “that the best of him is to be found.”

  Dutton, Richard. William Shakespeare: A Literary Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.

  Not a biography in the traditional sense, Dutton’s very readable work nevertheless “follows the contours of Shakespeare’s life” as it examines Shakespeare’s career as playwright and poet, with consideration of his patrons, theatrical associations, and audience.

  Honan, Park. Shakespeare: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

  Honan’s accessible biography focuses on the various contexts of Shakespeare’s life—physical, social, political, and cultural—to place the dramatist within a lucidly described world. The biography includes detailed examinations of, for example, Stratford schooling, theatrical politics of 1590s London, and the careers of Shakespeare’s associates. The author draws on a wealth of established knowledge and on interesting new research into local records and documents; he also engages in speculation about, for example, the possibilities that Shakespeare was a tutor in a Catholic household in the north of England in the 1580s and that he acted particular roles in his own plays, areas that reflect new, but unproven and debatable, data—though Honan is usually careful to note where a particular narrative “has not been capable of proof or disproof.”

  Potter, Lois. The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

  This critical biography of Shakespeare takes the playwright from cradle to grave, paying primary attention to his literary and theatrical milieu. The chapters “follow a chronological sequence,” each focusing on a handful of years in the playwright’s life. In the chapters that cover his playwriting years (5–17), each chapter focuses on events in Stratford-upon-Avon and in London (especially in the commercial theaters) while giving equal space to discussions of the plays and/or poems Shakespeare wrote during those years. Filled with information from Shakespeare’s literary and theatrical worlds, the biography also shares frequent insights into how modern productions of a given play can shed light on the play, especially in scenes that Shakespeare’s text presents ambiguously.

  Schoenbaum, S. William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

  Schoenbaum’s evidence-based biography of Shakespeare is a compact version of his magisterial folio-size Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). Schoenbaum structures his readable “compact” narrative around the documents that still exist which chronicle Shakespeare’s familial, theatrical, legal, and financial existence. These documents, along with those discovered since the 1970s, form the basis of almost all Shakespeare biographies written since Schoenbaum’s books appeared.

  Shakespeare’s Theater

  Bentley, G. E. The Profession of Player in Shakespeare’s Time, 1590–1642. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

  Bentley readably sets forth a wealth of evidence about performance in Shakespeare’s time, with special attention to the relations between player and company, and the business of casting, managing, and touring.

  Berry, Herbert. Shakespeare’s Playhouses. New York: AMS Press, 1987.

  Berry’s six essays collected here discuss (with illustrations) varying aspects of the four playhouses in which Shakespeare had a financial stake: the Theatre in Shoreditch, the Blackfriars, and the first and second Globe.

  Berry, Herbert, William Ingram, and Glynne Wickham, eds. English Professional Theatre, 1530–1660. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

  Wickham presents the government documents designed to control professional players, their plays, and playing places. Ingram handles the professional actors, giving as representative a life of the actor Augustine Phillips, and discussing, among other topics, patrons, acting companies, costumes, props, playbooks, provincial playing, and child actors. Berry treats the twenty-three different London playhouses from 1560 to 1660 for which there are records, including four inns.

  Cook, Ann Jennalie. The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare’s London. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.

  Cook’s work argues, on the basis of sociological, economic, and documentary evidence, that Shakespeare’s audience—and the audience for English Renaissance drama generally—consisted mainly of the “privileged.”

  Dutton, Richard, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

  Dutton divides his study of the theatrical industry of Shakespeare’s time into the following sections: “Theatre Companies,” “London Playhouses,” “Other Playing Spaces,” “Social Practices,” and “Evidence of Theatrical Practices.” Each of these sections is further subdivided, with subdivisions assigned to individual experts. W. R. Streitberger treats the “Adult Playing Companies to 1583”; Sally-Beth MacLean those from 1583 to 1593; Roslyn L. Knutson, 1593–1603; Tom Rutter, 1603–1613; James J. Marino, 1613–1625; and Martin Butler, the “Adult and Boy Playing Companies 1625–1642.” Michael Shapiro is responsible for the “Early (Pre-1590) Boy Companies and Their Acting Venues,” while Mary Bly writes of “The Boy Companies 1599–1613.” David Kathman handles “Inn-Yard Playhouses”; Gabriel Egan, “The Theatre in Shoreditch 1576–1599”; Andrew Gurr, “Why the Globe Is Famous”; Ralph Alan Cohen, “The Most Convenient Place: The Second Blackfriars Theater and Its Appeal”; Mark Bayer, “The Red Bull Playhouse”; and Frances Teague, “The Phoenix and the Cockpit-in-Court Playhouses.” Turning to “Other Playing Spaces,” Suzanne Westfall describes how “ ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune’: Household Entertainments”; Alan H. Nelson, “The Universities and the Inns of Court”; Peter Greenfield, “Touring”; John H. Astington, “Court Theatre”; and Anne Lancashire, “London Street Theater.” For “Social Practices,” Alan Somerset writes of “Not Just Sir Oliver Owlet: From Patrons to ‘Patronage’ of Early Modern Theatre,” Dutton himself of “The Court, the Master of the Revels, and the Players,” S. P. Cerasano of “Theater Entrepreneurs and Theatrical Economics,” Ian W. Archer of “The City of London and the Theatre,” David Kathman of “Players, Livery Companies, and Apprentices,” Kathleen E. McLuskie of “Materiality and the Market: The Lady Elizabeth’s Men and the Challenge of Theatre History,” Heather Hirschfield of “ ‘For the author’s credit’: Issues of Authorship in English Renaissance Drama,” and Natasha Korda of “Women in the Theater.” On “Theatrical Practices,” Jacalyn Royce discusses “Early Modern Naturalistic Acting: The Role of the Globe in the Development of Personation”; Tiffany Stern, “Actors’ Parts”; Alan Dessen, “Stage Directions and the Theater Historian”; R. B. Graves, “Lighting”; Lucy Munro, “Music and Sound”; Dutton himself, “Properties”; Thomas Postlewait, “Eyewitnesses to History: Visual Evidence for Theater in Early Modern England”; and Eva Griffith, “Christopher Beeston: His Property and Properties.”

  Greg, W. W. Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931.

  Greg itemizes and briefly describes almost all the play manuscripts that survive from the period 1590 to around 1660, including, among other things, players’ parts. His second volume offers facsimiles of selected manuscripts.

  Harbage, Alfred. Shakespeare’s Audience. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941.

  Harbage investigates the fragmentary surviving evidence to interpret the size, composition, and behavior of Shakespeare’s audience.

  Keenan, Siobhan. Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare’s London. London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2014.

  Keenan “explores how the needs, practices, resources and pressures on acting companies and playwrights informed not only the performance and publication of contemporary dramas but playwrights’ writing practices.” Each chapter focuses on one important factor that influenced Renaissance playwrights and players. The initial focus is on how “the nature and composition of the acting companies” influenced the playwrights who wrote for them. Then, using “the Diary of theatre manager Philip Henslowe and manuscript playbooks showing signs of theatrical use,” Keenan examines the relations between acting companies and playwrights. Other influences include “the physical design and facilities of London’s outdoor and indoor theatrical spaces” and the diverse audiences for plays, including royal and noble patrons.

  Shapiro, Michael. Children of the Revels: The Boy Companies of Shakespeare’s Time and Their Plays. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.

  Shapiro chronicles the history of the amateur and quasi-professional child companies that flourished in London at the end of Elizabeth’s reign and the beginning of James’s.

  The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays

  Blayney, Peter W. M. The First Folio of Shakespeare. Hanover, Md.: Folger, 1991.

  Blayney’s accessible account of the printing and later life of the First Folio—an amply illustrated catalogue to a 1991 Folger Shakespeare Library exhibition—analyzes the mechanical production of the First Folio, describing how the Folio was made, by whom and for whom, how much it cost, and its ups and downs (or, rather, downs and ups) since its printing in 1623.

  Hinman, Charlton. The Norton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

  This facsimile presents a photographic reproduction of an “ideal” copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare; Hinman attempts to represent each page in its most fully corrected state. This second edition includes an important new introduction by Peter W. M. Blayney.

  Hinman, Charlton. The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.

  In the most arduous study of a single book ever undertaken, Hinman attempts to reconstruct how the Shakespeare First Folio of 1623 was set into type and run off the press, sheet by sheet. He also provides almost all the known variations in readings from copy to copy.

  Werstine, Paul. Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

  Werstine examines in detail nearly two dozen texts associated with the playhouses in and around Shakespeare’s time, conducting the examination against the background of the two idealized forms of manuscript that have governed the editing of Shakespeare from the twentieth into the twenty-first century—Shakespeare’s so-called foul papers and the so-called promptbooks of his plays. By comparing the two extant texts of John Fletcher’s Bonduca, one in manuscript and the other printed in 1647, Werstine shows that the term “foul papers” that is found in a note in the Bonduca manuscript does not refer, as editors have believed, to a species of messy authorial manuscript but is instead simply a designation for a manuscript, whatever its features, that has served as the copy from which another manuscript has been made. By surveying twenty-one texts with theatrical markup, he demonstrates that the playhouses used a wide variety of different kinds of manuscripts and printed texts but did not use the highly regularized promptbooks of the eighteenth-century theaters and later. His presentation of the peculiarities of playhouse texts provides an empirical basis for inferring the nature of the manuscripts that lie behind printed Shakespeare plays.

  Key to Famous Lines and Phrases

  Could I come near your beauty with my nails,

  I’d set my ten commandments in your face.

  [Duchess—1.3.145–46]

  When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?

  [King Henry—2.1.64]

  Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud,

  And after summer evermore succeeds

  Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold;

  So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.

  [Gloucester—2.4.1–4]

  Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep[.]

  [Suffolk—3.1.53]

  Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,

  And he but naked, though locked up in steel,

  Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

  [King Henry—3.2.241–43]

  I thank them for their tender loving care[.]

  [King Henry—3.2.290]

  The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day

  Is crept into the bosom of the sea[.]

  [Lieutenant—4.1.1–2]

          [I]t was never merry world in England since

  gentlemen came up.

  [Holland—4.2.8–9]

          I will make it felony to drink small beer.

  [Cade—4.2.66–67]

  The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.

  [Dick—4.2.75]

          It will be proved

  to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually

  talk of a noun and a verb and such abominable words

  as no Christian ear can endure to hear.

  [Cade—4.7.37–40]

               [I]gnorance is the curse of God,

  Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven[.]

  [Saye—4.7.73–74]

  I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich[.]

  [Cade—4.10.29]

  [A]s dead as a doornail[.]

  [Cade—4.10.41–42]

  Commentary

  * * *

  ACT 1

  * * *

  Scene 1

  1.1  King Henry meets his consort Queen Margaret, brought by Suffolk from France. The nobles fall into dissension, with the Cardinal, Buckingham, and Somerset opposing Gloucester, and with Salisbury and Warwick supporting him. Alone, York discloses his secret ambition for the crown.

  0 SD. Flourish: fanfare to announce the approach of royalty; hautboys: powerful woodwinds used in outdoor ceremonials (an early form of the oboe) See picture.

  An hautboy. (1.1.0 SD)

  From Balthasar Küchler, Repraesentatio der fürstlichen Auffzug . . . [1611].

  1–2. As . . . charge: i.e., as I was commanded by your Majesty  imperial: See longer note.

  2. depart: departure

  3. procurator: agent, deputy, proxy

  4. To marry . . . Grace: For the background on this marriage in Henry VI, Part 1, see longer note.

  6. Sicil: Sicily (See line 51.)

  7–8. Orleance: Orléans; Calaber: Calabria; Britaigne: Brittany; Alanson: Alençon (For these Folio spellings, see longer note.)

  11. espoused: married (by proxy)

  13. peers: nobles

  14. title in: right to possession of

  15. that are the substance: i.e., you who are the solid or real thing, as proverbially opposed to image or semblance called the shadow (line 16)

  17. happiest: most fortunate

  18. fairest: most beautiful

  20. kinder: more natural

  21. kind: affectionate

  22. that: i.e., who

  23. Lend: grant, give (In line 22, lends me means “grants me temporary possession.”)

  25. A world: a vast quantity or infinity

  26. sympathy: harmony, correspondence

  28. mutual conference: intimate conversation

  30. courtly company: i.e., the company of courtiers; at my beads: i.e., alone at prayer  beads: rosary (See picture.)

  A rosary. (1.1.30; 1.3.58)

  From Cesare Vecellio, Habiti antichi et moderni . . . [1598].

  31. alderliefest: very dear

  32. salute: greet, address

  33. ruder: less polished; wit: mind, intelligence; affords: supplies

  34. overjoy: too great joy; minister: impart

  35. Her sight: i.e., the sight of her; ravish: overpower with delight

  36. yclad: clad, clothed

  37. wond’ring: admiration

  39. cheerful: joyous (but with likely wordplay on cheer, meaning “encourage by shouts and cries”)