1437480 1587. Holinshed. Chronicles. Important Shakespeare Source.

9373.

HOLINSHED, Raphael. The First and Second [and Third] volumes of Chronicles Now newly augmented and continued to the year 1586. (Colophon: London: [Henry Denham] for John Harrison, et al., 1587). Three volumes in two (as issued); separate volume of facsimiles. Three volumes altogether. Tall, thick folio (11 by 16 inches), contemporary full brown paneled calf rebacked, gilt-stamped cartouches in arabesque and strapwork designs with dotted ground and floral motifs, original tan calf spine.

Greatly revised and expanded 1587 second edition of the foremost Elizabethan repository of English history-this edition being an important source for nearly all of Shakespeare’s historical plays, as well as Macbeth, King Lear, and part of Cymbeline. All cancellations have been made in this copy (as in most copies), but the scarce 18th-century type-facsimiles of the sheets that were censored are provided in a companion volume. A most important part of any major Elizabethan/Shakespeare collection. 'Whatever the long-range intellectual goals of Holinshed, he had the journalist’s eye for sensationalism; he stresses crimes, both political and erotic, physical mutilations, marvels, monstrosities and absurdities' (Sargent, 25). An immediate success upon publication, Holinshed’s Chronicles 'form a very valuable repertory of historical information' The chronicler fully justified his claim ‘to have had an especial eye unto the truth of things’ (DNB). First published in 1578, the Chronicles was the foremost British hi

 'The Elizabethan dramatists drew many of their plots from Holinshed’s pages,' and Shakespearian scholars have shown that 'it was this second edition which Shakespeare employed as the source, sole or part, of ten of his plays' (Pforzheimer 494 note). 'Nearly all of the historical plays, as well as Macbeth, King Lear, and part of Cymbeline, are based on Holinshed' (DNB). In fact, Shakespeare drew not only his plots from Holinshed, but occasionally his phrases. The complete story of the rise and fall of Macbeth can be found in the History of Scotland (Part III, 170-76), and Holinshed’s eloquent descriptions intimate at times the very wording of Shakespeare’s drama: Macbeth, for example, is described as 'a valiant gentleman, and one that if he had not beene somewhat cruell of nature, might have beene thought most worthie the governement of a realme'; the three 'weird sisters women in straunge and wild apparell, resembling creatures of elder world' deliver to Macbeth and Banquo the fateful prophecies; and, in the

 When this expanded second edition of the Chronicles appeared in January 1587, the Privy Council, responding to Queen Elizabeth’s displeasure at certain passages, ordered the Archbishop of Canterbury to recall and censure the work; as a result extensive cancellations were made of offending sections in Volumes II and III. The censors removed 'all references to English intervention in Scottish politics, raised the profile of the Earl of Leicester, and distanced England from Elizabeth’s one time suitor, the Duc d’Alençon. Any accounts of trials and executions were altered to ensure proceedings were unequivocally portrayed as being fair and legal' (King’s College London). By all accounts, the work of altering the entire edition of the Chronicles was rather haphazardly carried out, so that the sections affected vary from copy to copy. Nevertheless, in this copy all of the offending sections are cancelled or excised. Between 1723 and 1728, however, type-facsimiles of the excisions themselves were published from the