This book is
HOLINSHED'S
CHRONICLES as used by William Shakespeare (presumably) in his history plays: King Lear, Cymbeline,
Macbeth, King John, Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Henry V, 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, Richard III and Henry VIII. These are the actual excerpts from the
CHRONICLES that the Bard used as a reference, although not the only one. Some of the stories are very closely followed, as in one version of the Macbeth story that is given in the CHRONICLES; others are less than perfectly followed, as in King Lear's story.
In this book, the spelling has been modernized, as have most place names, so that the reading is much easier than in the original. There are five (5) appendices in the book:
1. An outline of English history;
2. Genealogical Tables;
3. A map of England and Western France;
4. The text of this edition;
5. An EXTENSIVE Bibliography.
This book is enlightening to anyone desiring to know more about European history (or historiography), especially English history, from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. The edition that Shakespeare
worked from was the 1587 edition, which had had material offensive to Queen Elizabeth I expurgated from the material contained in the first edition. Even so, it gives one the flavour of history (often with
extensive quotations from original sources) and an idea of how the past appeared to men of the English Renaissance.