Appendix E
Suggestions for Collateral Reading
W. G. Boswell-Stone: Shakespere's Holinshed. London, 1896. Here the passages of the play are compared with those from the Chronicle.
George Cavendish: The Life of Cardinal Wolsey. The New Universal Library, with an introduction by Henry Morley. This account of Wolsey by one who knew him well is accessible in a number of editions.
J.S. Brewer: The Reign of Henry VIII, from his Accession to the Death of Wolsey. London, 1884. This is the most detailed history of the period. Brewer's admiration for Wolsey's statesmanship blinds him to faults in his character.
J. A. Froude: The Reign of Henry VIII. Everyman's Library. Froude's bias against Wolsey will correct Brewer's bias for him.
Martin Hume: The Wives of Henry VIII. London, 1905. Katharine's character and her place in history.
James Spedding: Who Wrote Shakespeare's Henry VIII? Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1850. The famous discussion of the appearance of Fletcher's style in the play.
Robert Boyle: Henry VIII. New Shakespeare Society, 1880, 1886. Massinger's authorship is here upheld.
H. Dugdale Sykes: Sidelights on Shakespeare. Stratford-on-Avon, 1919. Massinger's authorship argued on the ground of analogous phrasing between his known plays and Henry VIII.
Baldwin Maxwell: Fletcher and Henry the Eighth. Manly Memorial Vol., 1928, pp. 104–112. Some doubts concerning Fletcher's alleged part in the play.
Almost any modern edition will discuss the problems involved. The Cambridge edition of Henry VIII, edited by Aldus Wright, and the Arden edition, edited by D. Nichol Smith, give large amounts of illustrative material.