WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT, M.A. HON. D.C.L., LL.D. AND LITT.D. Fellow and Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M DCCC XCVII [All rights reserved] PREFACE THE First Part of Henry the Fourth was entered at Stationers' Hall to Andrew Wyse on the 25th of February 159, under the title, 'The historye of Henry the iiijth with his battaile of Shrewsburye against Henry Hottspurre of the North with the conceipted mirthe of Sir John Falstoff.' The entry to Master Woolff on 9 January 159, quoted by Steevens, refers to a different book, by Sir John Hayward, The first Part of the Life and Reigne of King Henrie the IIII, which was published in 1599. Other quarto editions of the play succeeded in 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613, 1622, 1632, and 1639. The version in the first Folio (1623) appears to have been printed from a partially corrected copy of the Quarto of 1613. It is probable that the play was written not long before it was entered at Stationers' Hall, perhaps in the early part of 1597. It had been acted and was become popular in 1598, for it is one of the plays which is mentioned in that year by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia, or Wits Commonwealth, as an example of Shakespeare's pre-eminence among English writers for Tragedy. For the historical portions of the play Shakespeare depended upon Holinshed, whose Chronicle, as in Richard the Second, he closely followed. The comic parts appear to have been suggested by a poor play which had been on the stage for about ten years and had attained some popularity, The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth. If the story told |