Raymond Biswanger Slide Collection
William Shakespeare:1599
London, England, and Monmouth, Wales
The Chronicle History of Henry the Fifth was written by William Shakespeare in 1599 and entered into the Stationer's Register on 14 August 1600. It was first published in bad quarto that same year, with two more reprints from this first flawed version in 1602 and 1619. A more complete version was published in the First Folio of 1623.Henry V is the final part of a tetralogy, and is preceded by Richard II, 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV.
The historical Henry V was born on 16 September 1387 and died on 31 August 1422. Shakespeare's primary source for the play was Raphael Holinshed's 1587 Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland and Edward Hall's 1550 The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and York. Other sources include Robert Fabyan's 1516 The New Chronicle of England and France, and Latin biographies of Henry V such as Henrici Quinti Angliae Regis Gesta, written by an army chaplain present at Agincourt, or Tito Livio's Vita Henrici Quinti, translated in 1513 as The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth.
Portrait of King Henry V, National Portrait Gallery, London [27 May 1983]
Portraits of King Henry V and King Henry VI, National Portrait Gallery, London [7 May 1983]
Statue of King Henry V, Monmouth, Wales [18 April 1976]
