Page:Henry VI Part 1 (1918) Yale.djvu/147

King Henry the Sixth (3) The earlier (pre-Shakespearean) versions of 2 and 3 Henry VI were printed in 1594 and 1595 respectively, these texts presumably becoming accessible to the publishers after the revised dramas supplanted them for stage purposes. The fact that no such text of the early 1 Henry VI was printed would suggest that that play was reserved either till it was too late to warrant publishers to trade upon its former popularity or till Shakespeare's company began to take more stringent measures to prevent the publication of any play-texts.

(4) A mutual connection exists between 1 Henry VI and Henry V (cf. note on IV. ii. 10, 11). Several passages in our play seem reminiscent of the other (written in 1599). It is a plausible hypothesis at least that 1 Henry VI was revised in order on the one hand to profit by the popular interest in Henry V and on the other to link that play with 2 Henry VI, thus completing the chain of history dramas from Richard II to Richard III.