David Scott Kastan lucidly explores the remarkable richness and the ambitious design of King Henry IV Part 1 and shows how these complicate any easy sense of what kind of play it is. Conventionally regarded as a history play, much of it is in fact conspicuously invented fiction, and Kastan argues that the non-historical, comic plot does not simply parody the historical action but by its existence raises questions about the very nature of history.

The full and engaging introduction devotes extensive discussion to the play’s language, indicating how its insistent economic vocabulary provides texture for the social concerns of the play and focuses attention on the central relationship between value and political authority.


Table of contents
List of illustrations
General Editors preface
Preface

INTRODUCTION
Great expectations
Mingling kings and clowns: history, comedy and dramatic unity
1 Henry 4: one part or one play?
Understanding politics in the play
Understanding the politics of the play
Unimitated, unimitable Falstaff
Falstaff as Oldcastle/Oldcastle as Falstaff: radical Protestantism and Rabelaisian play
Counterfeiting and kings, credit and credibility: economic language in the play
What is that word “honour”?
Women in the play
The play in performance
The play on the page: the text of 1 Henry 4
Editorial procedures

KING HENRY IV, PART ONE

Appendix 1: The sources of 1 Henry IV
Appendix 2: A note on Shakespeares metrics
Appendix 3: The play in manuscript
Appendix 4: Casting
Appendix 5: The Q0 fragment

Abbreviations and References
Index