Reading Room - Histories

Annabel Patterson, Shakespeare and the Popular Voice (1989) and Reading Holinshed's Chronicles (1994) – two books that should be read as a pair

Norman Rabkin, Shakespeare and the Problem of Meaning (1981) – particularly good chapter on Shakespeare's doubled-edged attitude to Henry V, but valuable as an approach to all the plays, not just the histories

Phyllis Rackin, Stages of History: Shakespeare's English Chronicles (1990) – gives due attention to women and social inferiors as well as kings and nobles

Peter Saccio, Shakespeare's English Kings (1977) – the best practical guide to the relationship between actual historical events in the middle ages, the Tudor chronicles and Shakespeare's dramatic reshaping of history

There are hundreds more fine books on Shakespeare, but anyone who reads The RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works from cover to cover and then devours a reasonable proportion of the above will have earned the right to consider themselves an exceptionally highly informed Shakespearean.