Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland: England

Raphael HolinshedProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
405K words
Chapters
41

Tags

English Originals World History Historical ReappraisalPolitical AllegoryRise and FallClassic NarrativeCompilationTurbulent EraFolk Customs

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (05 of 12)Author: Holinshed, Raphael, -1580?,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Sep 27, 2005

Editor's review

This volume is the fifth of twelve fascicles devoted to England in the second of the six volumes of Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, released free by Project Gutenberg. A key sixteenth-century English chronicle, it assembles British historical materials in chronological order, retaining features of early modern English and reflecting the historical consciousness and narrative traditions of the Tudor age; it is also one of the background sources for Shakespeare's history plays. Like the adjacent fascicles, its value lies in providing raw historical fragments and a sample of the period's prose style rather than a modern critical general history. This fascicle is suited to research use or fragmentary reading, allowing readers to observe how the chronicler selects events and judges figures. Being a public-domain electronic text, it lacks modern annotation and an introduction, so handbooks and background materials are needed while reading. Reading it alongside adjacent parts such as the fourth fascicle is recommended to form a fuller chronological sequence.

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Reading tips

  1. First consult the structural description of the whole chronicle set to clarify this installment's place in the chronological sequence.
  2. While reading, jot down an index of names and places for easy cross-reference with adjacent installments.
  3. Select passages related to Shakespeare's history plays for close reading and compare narrative differences.
  4. When encountering unfamiliar spellings, first infer from pronunciation, then verify with a dictionary or annotated edition.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41

FAQ

Does this fascicle overlap with the fourth fascicle? According to the sources, both belong to the twelve-fascicle series on England in the second of the six volumes, as the fourth and fifth fascicles respectively; different numbering means they cover different portions of the chronicle. They form adjacent segments with no overlap, and reading them together makes it easier to form a continuous historical sequence.
Is the quality of public-domain ebooks reliable? Project Gutenberg is a long-established free ebook project whose texts are usually proofread by volunteers and are usable public-domain readings. It is not, however, a modern scholarly critical edition; there may be differences in typesetting or treatment of variant characters, and academic citation should be checked against the original or a critical edition.
What background knowledge is needed to read this book? Readers are advised to first understand the basic succession of dynasties and major events in England from the Middle Ages to the Tudor period, and to have some basic familiarity with early modern English. Those studying Shakespeare should also be familiar with the plots of the relevant history plays in order to compare the chronicle materials with the dramatic adaptations.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Raphael Holinshed Author · British

Raphael Holinshed (died perhaps 1580) was an English chronicler. Public information about his life is limited, and later generations have known him chiefly through the historical work he edited. Employed by the London publisher Wolfe, he presided over the compilation of the first edition of the Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1577. The chronicle recounts the events and figures of the history of the British Isles in annalistic form, drawing on earlier writings and documents; its narrative is detailed and carries a strong tone of political and moral instruction. The work circulated widely and became a principal source for Shakespeare's history plays and for Macbeth, bridging English historiography and literature. The collection contains 27 works related to him.