Shakespeare's history plays have always been pivotal to our understanding of his works and their relationship to their political and cultural context. This collection renews attention to these crucial plays by exploring official and unofficial versions of the past, histories and counter-histories.

Dermot Cavanagh is Lecturer in English at the University of Edinburgh. Stuart Hampton-Reeves is Principal Lecturer in English and Drama at the University of Central Lancashire. Stephen Longstaffe is Lecturer in English and Drama at St. Martin's College, Lancaster.

1. Staring at Clio: Artists, histories and counter-histories - Stuart Hampton-Reeves
MEMORY AND MOURNING
2. Richard II and the performance of grief - John J. Joughin
3. History, mourning and memory in Henry V - Dermot Cavanagh
4. There is a history in all men's lives: Reinventing History in 2 Henry IV - Alison Thorne
5. Good sometime queen: Richard II and the poetics of queenship - Alison Findlay
COUNTER-HISTORIES
6. Strange truths: The Stanleys of Derby on the english renaissance stage - Lisa Hopkins
7. A sea of troubles: The thought of the outside in Shakespeare's histories - Richard Wilson
8. The Commons will revolt: Woodstock after the peasants' revolt - Stephen Longstaffe
9. National history to foreign calamity: A Mirror for Magistrates and early English tragedy - Jessica Winston
IDENTITY AND PERFORMANCE
10. War-like women: 'Reproofe to these degenerate, effeminate dayes' - Carol Banks
11. Of tygers' hearts and players' hides - Carol Rutter
12. Mapping Shakespeare's Britain - Peter Holland
Afterword - Mots d'escalier: Clio, Eurydice, Orpheus - Graham Holderness