Henry VIII

This facsimile edition of Henry VIII is taken from the large and handsome book known simply as the ‘First Folio’. This is the earliest collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays and was was printed in 1623, just seven years after his death.


For students of Henry VIII, going back to these First Folio plays is an essential part of a more complete understanding of Shakespeare's work.


Eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays had already been published in the small, cheap format known as quartos during his lifetime, including such favourites as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. The First Folio added another eighteen, including Macbeth, The Tempest and Twelfth Night all of which are indispensable to the modern repertory. Without the First Folio only half of Shakespeare’s dramatic output would have survived.


Henry VIII is one of Shakespeare's history plays dramatising the life of Henry VIII, king of England. It may have been written in collaboration with John Fletcher, and there is evidence that the play was originally called 'All Is True'. The play was written around 1613, making it one of Shakespeare's later plays, and it was in a 1613 performance that a cannon was let of which set fire to the Globe Theatre, burning it to the ground.


This is an eBookTreasures facsimile edition.