Richard II (The Unabridged Play) + The Classic Biography: The Life of William Shakespeare

Book excerpt: This carefully crafted ebook: “Richard II (The Unabridged Play) + The Classic Biography: The Life of William Shakespeare” is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second is a play written by William Shakespeare around 1595 and based on the life of King Richard II of England. It is the first part of a tetralogy referred to by scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, Part I; Henry IV, Part II; and Henry V. The play, set around the year 1398, traces the fall from power of the last king of the house of Plantagenet, Richard II, and his replacement by the first Lancaster king, Henry IV (Henry Bolingbroke). Life of William Shakespeare is a biography of William Shakespeare by the eminent critic Sidney Lee. This book was one of the first major biographies of the Bard of Avon. It was published in 1898, based on the article contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography. William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, the authorship of some of which is uncertain. Sir Sidney Lee (1859 – 1926) was an English biographer and critic. He was a lifelong scholar and enthusiast of Shakespeare. His article on Shakespeare in the fifty-first volume of the Dictionary of National Biography formed the basis of his Life of William Shakespeare. This full-length life is often credited as the first modern biography of the poet.