The New Penguin Shakespeare offers a complete edition of the plays and poems. Each volume has been prepared from the original texts and includes an introduction, a list of further reading, a full and helpful commentary, and a short account of the textual problems of the play.

THE Second Part of Henry IV is the third in a series of four plays by Shakespeare which dramatize the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. They are closely related, and the plays of the reigns of Henry IV and V refer frequently to events dramatized in the first play of the series, Richard II. Nevertheless, the most important point to grasp in an understanding of 2 Henry IVis that it is a play in its own right, a play ofits own kind, and especially that it is very different from I Henry IV. Though, like the other plays of the tetralogy, it is concerned with historical events, it is quite unlike them in its style, its mood, and its tone. Since they were first produced, the First Part of Henry IV has been more popular than the Second.

Henry IV has been interpreted and produced in the light - in the shadow - of I Henry IV. This is damaging to the play itself, obscuring its particular qualities, and harmful to the contribution it makes to the tetralogy of which it forms a part.

INTRODUCTION

FURTHER READING

THE SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY THE FOURTH

COMMENTARY

AN ACCOUNT OF THE TEXT

THE SONGS