CRITICISM

Booth, Stephen. The Book Called Holinshed's Chronicles: An Account of Its Inception, Purpose, Contributors, Contents, Publication, Revision, and Influence on William Shakespeare. San Francisco: The Book Club, 1968, 83 p.

In-depth, limited-edition bibliographical and critical study of Holinshed's Chronicles.

Boyd, Brian. “‘King John’ and ‘The Troublesome Raigne’: Sources, Structure, Sequence.” Philological Quarterly 74, No. 1 (1995): 37-57.

Argues that the Troublesome Raigne was derived from Shakespeare's King John, noting that the anonymous writer copied Shakespeare's reorganization of Holinshed's material in the Chronicles.

Bueler, Lois E. “Disraeli's Sybil and Holinshed's Chronicles.” Victorian Newsletter 54 (1978): 17-19.

Contends that Benjamin Disraeli's treatment of popular insurrection in Sybil is based on actual historical accounts recorded in the Chronicles.

Clegg, Cynthia Susan. “Which Holinshed? Holinshed's Chronicles at the Huntington Library.” Huntington Library Quarterly 55, No. 4 (Fall 1992): 559-77.

Surveys the compilation history of both the 1577 and 1587 versions of the Chronicles, based on the editions available at the Huntington Library in California.

Hardin, Richard F. “Chronicles and Mythmaking in Shakespeare's Joan of Arc.” Shakespeare Survey 42 (1990): 25-35.

Examines Shakespeare's characterization of Joan of Arc in Henry VI, Part One based on his use of several sources, including the Chronicles.

Levy, F. J. Tudor Historical Thought. San Marino, Calif.: The Huntington Library, 1967, 305 p.

Influential critical study of sixteenth-century English historiography which places Holinshed within the context of several important Tudor chroniclers.

Matheson, Lister M. “English Chronicle Contexts for Shakespeare's Death of Richard II.” In From Page to Performance: Essays in Early English Drama, edited by John A. Alford, pp. 195-219. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1995.

Compares the chronicle histories of Holinshed and Edward Hall in an effort to discern how Shakespeare manipulated the conflicting accounts of Richard II's death to arrive at his own interpretation of the regicide.

Myers, Jr., James P. “Introduction.” In Elizabethan Ireland: A Selection of Writings by Elizabethan Writers on Ireland, pp. 1-21. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1983.

Surveys nine Elizabethan and Jacobean histories of Ireland, including Holinshed's Chronicles, and discusses the political implications of writing an English history of Ireland.

Patterson, Annabel. Reading Holinshed's Chronicles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, 339 p.

Examines Holinshed's Chronicles as a document influenced by the cultural milieu of the Elizabethan period.

Tomlinson, Michael. “Shakespeare and the Chronicles Reassessed.” Literature and History 10, No. 1 (1984): 46-58.

Contends that there is an unorthodox political and artistic significance behind Shakespeare's deviations from his chronicle history sources in his plays.

Yamada, Naomichi. “The Tragedy of the Man Who ‘Bought a Glass’ in King Richard III—Shakespeare's Reinterpretation of Holinshed,” Parts 1 and 2. Hitotsubashi Journal of Arts and Sciences 34, No. 1 (1993): 1-23; 35, No. 1 (1994): 1-31.

Traces Shakespeare's departures from Holinshed to anatomize his characterization of Richard III, providing an exhaustive appendix of lines from the play and their counterparts in Holinshed.

Additional coverage of Holinshed's life and career is contained in the following source published by the Gale Group: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 167.