King Richard ll

In this updated edition of King Richard II, Claire McEachern provides a fresh introductory section in which she discusses the most important productions and scholarly criticism of recent years. Paying particular attention to the focus on religion in contemporary interpretations of the play, McEachern also analyses the increasing number of performances on stage and screen. Andrew Gurr's acclaimed introduction guides the reader through the play's action and politics, providing a thorough and engaging grounding in its structure, language and staging. An updated reading list completes the edition.

Introduction; The play; Textual analysis; Appendixes: 1. Shakespeare's use of Holinshed; 2. Extracts from Daniel's The Civil Wars; 3. 'An Homilie against Disobedience'; 4. Extracts from England's Parnassus; Reading list.

Andrew Gurr is Professor Emeritus at the University of Reading, and for the past thirty years has been Director of Research in London for the Globe Theatre. His books include The Shakespearean Stage 1574–1642 (Cambridge, 4th edition, 2009), The Shakespearian Playing Companies (1996), Staging in Shakespeare's Theatres (with Mariko Ichikawa, 2000), Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (Cambridge, 2004), The Shakespeare Company 1594–1642 (Cambridge, 2010), Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company, 1594-1625 (Cambridge, 2012) and Shakespeare's Workplace: Essays on Shakespearean Theatre (Cambridge, 2017). He has also edited the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of King Henry V.
Claire McEachern is Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Believing in Shakespeare: Studies in Longing (Cambridge, 2018); The Poetics of English Nationhood, 1590–1612 (Cambridge, 1996); and editor of eight of Shakespeare's plays including the Arden 3 Much Ado About Nothing (2015). Her essay collections include the Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Tragedy (Cambridge, 2nd edition, 2015), and, with Debora Shuger, Religion and Culture in Renaissance England (Cambridge, 1997).