1864 2 Henry VI, translated with considerable modifications into German, was produced at Weimar by Dingelstedt as one of the series of Shakespearean history plays (omitting 1 Henry VI), which were performed in celebration of the poet's tercentenary.[1] A more recent revival was that of the F. R. Benson Company at the Shakespeare Memorial Festival, Stratford-on-Avon, 1906, when the entire group of history plays, from Richard II to Richard III, was presented on successive days, the production of 2 Henry VI occurring on May 3.[2]
APPENDIX C
Authorship of the Play
In the vexed problem of the authorship of the Second Part of Henry VI two separate questions are involved:
(a) Who wrote the subsidiary play of The First Part of the Contention, preserved for us in the edition of 1594 and the reissues of 1600 and 1619?
(b) By whom were the large and often redundant additions made which distinguish the 1628 text of 2 Henry VI from the First Part of the Contention?
- ↑ For a detailed account of these jubilee performances see L. Eckardt: Shakespeare's englische Historien auf der Weimarer Bühne, Shakespeare Jahrbuch i. 362–391.
- ↑ An account will be found in the London Athenæum, May 12, 1906.
Anderson informed Mr. F. A. Marshall (Henry Irving Shakespeare, Introduction to 2 Henry VI): 'Unfortunately the manuscript with all books and papers were destroyed when the theatre was burnt down in the year 1864.' Another manuscript condensation of the Three Parts of Henry VI, prepared by the actor, Charles Kemble, is printed by Mr. Marshall, ibid., vol. ii, pp. 203–246.
