From the Longman Cultural Editions series, Henry IV, edited by Ronald Levao, is the only paperback edition to bring both Part One and Part Two together in one volume, along with relevant literary and historical contextual materials that illluminate, without overwhelming, the primary texts.
This edition presents both parts of Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays in the authoritative Bevington edition, tracing the full course of Prince Hal’s ambiguous journey from prodigal youth to his role as King Henry V, as well as the controversial career of the tavern “king,” Sir John Falstaff. This format allows the plays to be read either as independent works or as parts of a larger paradoxical structure, with each part reflecting, completing, and complicating the other. Contextual materials emphasize the plays’ historical background, Shakespeare’s transformation of his sources, and the intellectual controversies that are embodied in the dramatic action.
Handsomely produced and affordably priced, Longman Cultural Editions consist of the complete text of an important literary work, reliably edited, headed by an inviting introduction, supplemented by helpful annotations, accompanied by a table of significant dates and a guide for further study, followed by contextual materials that reveal the conversations and controversies of its historical moment.
The Longman Cultural Editions series presents the only paperback edition of both parts of Henry IV published in one volume, together with relevant literary and historical contextual materials that illluminate without overwhelming the primary texts. This edition presents both parts of Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays in the authoritative Bevington edition, tracing the full course of Prince Hal’s ambiguous journey from prodigal youth to his role as King Henry V, as well as the controversial career of the tavern “king,” Sir John Falstaff. Contextual materials emphasize the plays’ historical background, Shakespeare’s transformation of his sources, and the intellectual controversies that are embodied in the dramatic action. One Longman Cultural Edition can be packaged at no additional cost with any volume of The Longman Anthology of British Literature by Damrosch et al., or at a discount with any other Longman textbook.
Ronald Levao received his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, and has held fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of Renaissance Minds and Their Fictions: Cusanus, Sidney Shakespeare, editor of Selected Poems of Thomas Campion, Samuel Daniel and Sir Walter Ralegh, and has published numerous essays on Renaissance literature. He has been a member of English Departments at Princeton University and Queens College, City University of New York and is currently at the English Department of Rutgers University, where he specializes in Shakespeare and early-modern intellectual history. He has recently won departmental and university-wide teaching awards.
