PREFATORY NOTICE.

THE following edition is intended for the students of our Indian Universities. I have accordingly endeavoured to leave no difficulty unnoticed that a native of India would require to have explained. Should the book fall into the hands of any English student of Shakespeare, I trust that he will look at it from this point of view. Mr. Deighton has shown, in the Prefatory Notice prefixed to his edition of Much Ado About Nothing, that Indian students of Shakespeare require more help than is given in the school editions generally used in England and America. It is unnecessary for me to reproduce his remarks here.

I will only mention that I most cordially concur with what Mr. Deighton says about æsthetic and psychological criticism. I have adopted in my Introduction the views of Kreyssig, the justly celebrated German critic, partly because I suppose them

not to be familiar to Indian students. Should any reader consider his estimate of the play and of its dominant character too favourable, I would remind him that I have also drawn attention to the fact, insisted on by the Shakespearian scholars of our own country, that Richard III. is one of Shakespeare's early plays, written when he was under the influence of Marlowe. It is therefore unreasonable to expect in the portrait of Richard III. the perfect finish which we admire in that of Iago.

INTRODUCTION.

“RICHARD THE THIRD" is included among the histories in the catalogue prefixed to the folio edition of Shakespeare's works published in 1623 by Heminge and Condell. But the title prefixed to the play itself in its place in the volume is "The Tragedy of Richard the Third: with the Landing of Earle Richmond and the Battell at Bosworth Field." Wright tells us that it is described as a tragedy in all the early copies. The earliest known edition of the play is a quarto, printed in 1597, with the following title-page, in which, it will be observed, the author's namie is omitted :

: |

"The Tragedy of | King Richard the third. | Containing, His treacherous Plots against his brother Clarence the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes his tyrannicall usurpation with the whole. course of his detested life, and most deserved death.| As it has been lately Acted by the | Right honourable the Lord Chamber- | laine his servants. | AT LONDON | Printed by Valentine Sims, for Andrew Wise, | dwelling in Paules Church-yard, at the | Signe of the Angell.| 1597."

The play was entered on the Stationers' Registers on the 20th of October, 1597, by Wise, under the title of "The Tragedie of Kinge Richard the Third, with the

All

death of the Duke of Clarence." Seven more quarto editions appeared at intervals from 1598 to 1634. have Shakespeare's name on the title-page.

How long before 1597 the play was composed, is, to a great extent, a matter of conjecture. Malone thought that the play was written in 1593 or 1594. One of Shakespeare's Richards, and probably this, is alluded to in the Epigrams of John Weever, which, though published in 1599, are said to have been written in 1595. This would throw back the date to 1593 or 1594. The internal evidence is in favour of an early date. On this point Stokes remarks, "There are many signs of comparatively early work for instance, the prologuelike speech with which the play opens, the scenes where the trilogy of the common lamentation of the women alternates like a chorus, dramatic truth being sacrificed to the lyric or epic form, and to conceits in the style of the pastoral Italian poetry, the overstraining of some of the characters, and the analysis of motive sometimes exhibited." †

Wright also is of opinion that Richard III. is an "earlier composition than King John, and separated by no long interval from the Third Part of Henry VI., to which it is the sequel and the close."

* Quoted by Rolfe in his Introduction.

+ Rolfe informs us that Augustus Hare, in Guesses at Truth, argues that the fact that Richard boldly acknowledges his deliberate wickedness, instead of endeavouring to palliate or excuse it, like Edmund or Iago, shows that Shakespeare wrote this drama in his youth. Furnivall remarks, "Gloster's first declaration of his motives shows, of course, the young dramatist, as the want of relief in the play and the monotony of its curses also do."

Another play on the subject of Richard III. entitled The true Tragedy of Richard the Third," was published in 1594. Probably the bookseller was induced to publish it in consequence of the interest in the life and character of Richard III. excited by Shakespeare's play. This play may have been seen and used by Shakespeare.* There was also a Latin play on the same subject by Dr. Thomas Legge, which was acted at St. John's College, Cambridge, as early as 1579.

The respective origin and authority of the first quarto and first folio texts of Richard III. is, according to the Cambridge editors (Dr. Wright and the late Mr. W. G. Clark), "perhaps the most difficult question which presents itself to an editor of Shakespeare." Dr. Wright thus sums up their view-"That the quarto was printed from a transcript of the author's original manuscript. That the original manuscript was revised, corrected, and enlarged by the author, and that from a transcript of the play so revised the text of the folio was printed, with occasional reference to the third quarto which appeared in 1602. The conclusion at which the editors arrive is that, on the whole, the text of the quartos is superior to that of the folios." Mr. Spedding, on the other hand, is of opinion that, "where express reason cannot be shown to the contrary, the reading of the Folio ought always to be preferred."

I have adopted the text of the "Globe" edition, which

* It is probable that it was written some time before the date of publication. Possibly Richard's cry "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" is to be traced to this play, as also the substitution of the ghost-scene for Richard's dream of devils as related by Hall.