The First Part of King Henry the Sixth (New Kittredge Shakespeare) - Softcover

"Michèle Willems's edition of The First Part of King Henry the Sixth offers valuable insights into this little-known and puzzling play. . . . She rightly underscores the overwhelming presence in the play of ambivalence, contradiction, irony, and multiple angles of vision. . . . Illustrations from performance history help bring to life this underrated and fascinating historical saga."
—David Bevington, University of Chicago

"This intelligent, performance-based edition should encourage both schools and theaters to pay more attention to this interesting but largely neglected play. Professor Willems’ comparisons of the readily available BBC version with other productions bring the play alive, while her thorough knowledge of the play’s historical background, in both England and France, adds an important dimension to the annotations."
—Lois Potter, University of Delaware

George Lyman Kittredge’s insightful editions of Shakespeare have endured in part because of his eclecticism, his diversity of interests, and his wide-ranging accomplishments—all of which are reflected in the valuable notes in each volume. The plays in the New Kittredge Shakespeare series retain their original Kittredge notes and introductions, changed or augmented only when some modernization seems necessary. These new editions also include introductory essays by contemporary editors, notes on the plays as they have been performed on stage and film, and additional student materials. These plays are being made available by Focus Publishing with the permission of the Kittredge heirs.

Michèle Willems, Professor Emeritus, taught English Renaissance Literature for 33 years at the University of Rouen (France). She has published extensively on Shakespeare, including the essay "Video and its paradoxes" in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film (Cambridge University Press).