Penguin Classics: Henry VI – Part Two

‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers’

King Henry VI has been tricked into marrying Margaret – lover of the Earl of Suffolk, who hopes to rule the kingdom through her influence. Against a backdrop of savage murder, rebellion, duplicity and mutual hatred, the young king must face the rising threat of the House of York, and impending civil war. Part of Shakespeare’s tetralogy dealing with the Wars of the Roses, this exhilarating early history play shows the ferocity and violence of a nation devouring itself.

‘In Henry VI Part II we share in the exhilaration he found in pure story.’ Dominic Dromgoole

General Introduction on Shakespeare and the Elizabethan theatre by Stanley Wells
Edited by Norman Sanders with an introduction by Michael Taylor