故事背景仍由亨利四世與諾森布蘭伯爵家族間的戰爭開始，在一連串的戰爭相關的情節中，還穿插了福斯托夫這個人，這個處處招搖撞騙、油嘴滑舌的福斯托夫，一直是跟隨在皇子罕爾身邊的人物。一連串血腥的內戰結束後，亨利四世卻也病倒了，再如何精於計謀的老亨利四世，最終也敵不過上帝的召喚，只能在病中將皇位傳給皇子罕爾，也就是亨利五世。
Review
'Footnotes at the bottom of each page gloss unfamiliar items of vocabulary, paraphrase tricky meanings and uncover bawdy puns. There is a universe to be found in these annotations: the Renaissance world of power and fate, sex and death, language and philosophy.' - Times Educational Supplement
Product Description
Offers material to help readers understand the play - "Henry IV, Part 2" on the page and in performance, including interviews with Shakespearean directors Michael Boyd and Adrian Noble and actor Michael Pennington, and student-friendly scene-by-scene analysis.

作者簡介：

About the Author
JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as "the best modern book on Shakespeare." In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.