Holinshed's Chronicles, three parts in two volumes (Revised "Shakespeare" Edition)

A landmark of English historiography, censored within months of publication by order of the Privy Council and the direct textual source from which Shakespeare built his own histories.

There are very few books in the English language whose direct textual influence on a single other writer can be traced with the precision that scholarship has established for Holinshed's Chronicles and William Shakespeare. W. G. Boswell-Stone and H. R. D. Anders, in their landmark studies Shakespeare's Holinshed (1896) and subsequent scholarship, demonstrated conclusively that this second edition of 1587 was the text Shakespeare had directly before him as he wrote. He drew on it, in whole or in significant part, for at least ten plays: Richard II, Richard III, both parts of Henry IV, Henry V, all three parts of Henry VI, Henry VIII, Cymbeline, and Macbeth, together with portions of King Lear. The complete narrative of Macbeth's rise and fall, rendered by Holinshed with a moral ambivalence Shakespeare would sharpen into tragedy, is found entire within these pages; Holinshed's own description of Macbeth as "a valiant gentleman" who might, "if he had not beene somewhat cruell of nature," have been reckoned fit to govern a realm, anticipates the psychological complexity Shakespeare would build his play upon.

The Chronicles began under the London printer Reyner Wolfe, whose ambition was originally a universal history of the world; on his death in 1573 the project passed to a syndicate of the Stationers' Company, who narrowed its scope to the British Isles and engaged Raphael Holinshed (d. c.1580) to compile and edit the resulting work, assisted by William Harrison, Richard Stanyhurst, and others. The first edition appeared in 1577, itself subject to a degree of censorship concerning Stanyhurst's contribution on Ireland. For this second, greatly enlarged edition of 1587, John Hooker (alias Vowell) undertook the continuation of the narrative to 1586, assisted by Francis Thynne on the Scottish material and by Thynne, Abraham Fleming, and John Stow on the remainder: the resulting text nearly half again the length of its predecessor, at some 3.5 million words.

The circumstances of this edition's publication are themselves part of English constitutional and literary history. Almost immediately upon completion in January 1587, the freedom with which Hooker and his collaborators had treated recent and contemporary political events came to the attention of the Privy Council, and thence to Queen Elizabeth herself. The offending material concerned three principal subjects: England's covert intervention in Scottish factional politics and the delicate matter of Anglo-Scottish relations generally (rendered acutely sensitive by the fact that Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed at Fotheringhay in February 1587), the very month the recall order was issued; the Babington Plot of 1586, the conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth that had precipitated Mary's trial; and the conduct of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whose command of the English expeditionary force in the Low Countries had proven both militarily disappointing and constitutionally awkward, Leicester having accepted the governorship of the United Provinces without royal sanction. The Archbishop of Canterbury was instructed to recall and reform the book; the printer Henry Denham's shop then went through existing stock, physically excising the offending leaves before continuing sale of the reformed text. The result is one of the most bibliographically complex situations in the entire STC period: because the work of alteration was, as commonly told, "rather haphazardly carried out," the precise state of censorship varies from copy to copy, and no two surviving examples of this edition are guaranteed to be textually identical. Fully uncensored copies, escaping the recall entirely, are exceptionally rare. Between 1723 and 1728, three separate sets of facsimile reprints of the cancelled leaves were produced to allow collectors to "complete" their expurgated copies. These reprints are themselves now a recognised and collected feature of later copies.

This particular copy, upon comparison against the fully collated example held in the Boston Public Library, shows to be lacking the leaves affected by the 1587 excisions almost completely. This is an outcome consistent with the haphazard manner in which Denham's shop carried out the Crown's order, and one shared by a good proportion of surviving copies of this edition. The text is otherwise complete in its three constituent parts: the Description and Historie of England, the Description and Historie of Ireland (incorporating John Hooker's own translation of Giraldus Cambrensis), and the Description and Historie of Scotland (incorporating Hector Boece's history in John Bellenden's Scots translation). This edition is also bound, as was common practice for this edition, with the first two volumes together and the third separate.

HOLINSHED, Raphael; HARRISON, William; HOOKER, John [Vowell]; FLEMING, Abraham; THYNNE, Francis; STOW, John; STANYHURST, Richard; et al. The First and Second Volumes of Chronicles, comprising 1. The Description and Historie of England, 2. The Description and Historie of Ireland, 3. The Description and Historie of Scotland: First collected and published by Raphaell Holinshed, William Harrison, and others: now newlie augmented and continued (with manifold matters of singular note and worthie memorie) to the yeare 1586, by John Hooker aliàs Vowell Gent. and others. [Together with:] The Third Volume of Chronicles. London: At the expenses of John Harrison, George Bishop, Rafe Newberie, Henrie Denham, and Thomas Woodcocke. At London printed [by Henry Denham] in Aldersgate Street at the signe of the Starre, [colophon dated] januarie 1587. 3 volumes bound in 2.

Second edition — bibliographically established as "the Shakespeare edition.". Folio. 2 volumes. Contemporary tan calf, lavishly and uniformly decorated in gilt and blind to covers. Raised bands to spine, titling in gilt. Black letter, double column throughout. Seven general and part titles within engraved woodcut borders. Numerous ornamental woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces, woodcut printer's device to colophon leaves. This copy is lacking many of the leaves affected by the 1587 censorship (see below); text otherwise complete in three parts as issued. Binding sound in both volumes, remains tight and square. Numerous points of age present: rubbing to covers at edges and creases. More prevalent to volume one. Volume two has been rebacked and had newer leather inserted at the cover corners, professionally done with excellent work. The contents are generally very well preserved, with the biggest issue being heavy water staining at the front section of volume two. There is also toning present to some sections here and there. As mentioned, this copy has sections missing due to censorship. Interestingly, there are a few leaves of censored material present in volume one. Volume 2 has the largest portions of contents missing [in book 3, as called for]. Internally very good, overall. Paper remains in good order: flexible and without major defects. Some water markings present here and there.

STC 13569

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Catalogue Number: HH000683