The climax of Shakespeare's sequence of English history plays, this book is a celebration of a young warrior-king. It is also a study of the costly exhilarations of war and of the penalties, as well as the glories of human greatness. The editor, Gary Taylor, shows how Shakespeare shaped his historical material, examines controversial critical interpretations, discusses the play's fluctuating fortunes in performance, and analyzes the range and variety of Shakepeares characterization. The first folio text is radically rethought, making original use of the First Quarto (1600). Gary Taylor is the author of Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present, co-author of Modernizing Shakespeare; Spelling (with Stanley Wells) and co-editor of The Division of the Kingdoms: Shakespeare's Two Versions of King Lear (with Michael Warren).