Arthur Phillips - The Tragedy of Arthur

A LSO BY W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE

The Taming of the Shrew
Edward III
Henry VI, Parts IIII (with Nashe, et al.)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Titus Andronicus (with George Peele)
Richard III
Venus and Adonis
The Rape of Lucrece
The Sonnets
The Comedy of Errors
LovesLabours Lost
Loves Labours Won (lost)
A Midsummer Nights Dream
Romeo and Juliet
Richard II
King John
The Merchant of Venice
Henry IV, Parts III
Much Ado About Nothing
Henry V
As You Like It
Julius Caesar
Hamlet
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Sir Thomas More (with Munday, et al.)
Twelfth Night
Troilus and Cressida
Othello
Measure for Measure
Alls Well That Ends Well
Timon of Athens
(with Thomas Middleton)
King Lear
Macbeth (with Thomas Middleton)
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Pericles (with George Wilkins)
Cymbeline
The Winters Tale
The Tempest
Cardenio (with John Fletcherlost)
Henry VIII (with John Fletcher)
The Two Noble Kinsmen
(with John Fletcher)
A LSO BY A RTHUR P HILLIPS
Prague
The Egyptologist
Angelica
The Song Is You

Copyright 2011 by Arthur Phillips

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

No reprint, performance, or recital of The Tragedy of Arthur is allowed under international copyright laws without express written permission of Arthur Phillips.

L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION D ATA

Phillips, Arthur.
The tragedy of Arthur: a novel / by Arthur Phillips.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60506-5
I. Title.
PS 3616.h45t73 2011
813.6dc22 2010021192

www.atrandom.com

Jacket design and illustration: Ben Wiseman

v3.1

Random House is proud to present this first modern edition of The Tragedy of Arthur by William Shakespeare.

Until now, Shakespeares dramatic canon consisted of thirty-eight or thirty-nine plays, depending on whose scholarship one trusted and whose edition of the Complete Works one owned. Thirty-six plays were included in the so-called First Folio of 1623, published seven years after the playwrights death. Two morecollaborations, likely delayed for copyright reasonswere added to subsequent seventeenth-century collections. A thirty-ninth play, Edward III, has over the last two decades garnered increasing academic support as having been written, at least in part, by Shakespeare, but it was published only anonymously in his lifetime and is by no means universally acknowledged as a Shakespeare play. A further two worksCardenio and Loves Labours Wonare referred to in historical documents, but no copies of either have survived. Another dozen or so playsthe so-called Apocryphado exist and are debated, but none have acquired anything approaching scholarly consensus as being the work of Shakespeare.

The Tragedy of Arthur was published as a quarto in 1597. Its covers claim that the text is newly corrected and augmented implies a previous version now lost, but this 1597 edition was, as far as we now know, the first play to be printed with Shakespeares name on the title page, pre-dating Loves Labours Lost by one year. Likely banned, or at least judged politically dangerous and therefore excluded from the 1623 folio, the play apparently fell into disfavor, and only one copy of that 1597 quarto has so far been discovered. It was not found until the 1950s, and has been held in a private collection until now. The Tragedy of Arthur is, therefore, the first certain addition to Shakespeares canon since the seventeenth century.

The story it tells is not the legend of Camelot most readers know. There is no sword in the stone, no Lancelot, no Round Table, no Merlin or magic. Instead, Shakespeare seems to have worked from his usual source for history plays, Raphael Holinsheds 1587 Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The resulting plot is something more like King Lear, a violent argument of succession in Dark Ages Britain. But, like Lear, it is about so very much more, and the white heat that courses through the whole structure is Shakespeares unmistakable imagination and language.

Many people have worked with great dedication to make this book possible. It could not have come to pass without the academic leadership of Professor Roland Verre, who has overseen the research and tests that have confirmed the plays authenticity and William Shakespeare as its sole or primary author. Professor Verre submitted the text to a battery of computerized stylistic and linguistic examinations, solicited the critical opinions of his peers on three continents, and supervised the forensic study of the 1597 documents paper and ink. Academic opinion has steadily grown in volume and certainty over the past year, and there is now no notable voice in Shakespearean studies who questions the authenticity of The Tragedy of Arthur.

Our gratitude extends equally to the dozens more professors of English language and literature, theater directors, linguists and critics, historians and Shakespeare experts who formed our ad hoc advisory board, as well as the specialists in ink, paper, and printing led by Dr. Peter Bryce, and a legion of researchers, editorial assistants, and legal experts. The contributions of Professors David Crystal, Tom Clayton, and Ward Elliott (whose Claremont Shakespeare Clinic conducted the stylometry tests) demand particular recognition.

This first edition comes with a unique appreciation by a Random House author, Arthur Phillips. As his family played a central role in bringing the play to light and corroborating its authenticity, he was invited to write a brief introduction to this monumental work, even though he certainly does not claim to be a Shakespeare expert. He also edited and annotated the text of the play. Professor Verre has kindly amended some of Mr. Phillipss notes.

Despite Phillipss importance to the works discovery, we would suggest that general readers plunge directly into the play, allowing Shakespeare to speak for himself, at least at first. Then, if some background is helpful, look to this very personal Introduction or to the many other commentaries sure to be available soon.

T HE E DITORS
Random House/Modern Library
January 2011

Title page of the 1597 quarto of The Tragedy of Arthur by William Shakespeare. The quarto measures approximately 7.25 5.125 inches and is 76 pages. W.W. is William White, who printed several other works by Shakespeare, including Loves Labours Lost (Q1) , Richard II (Q4), and 1 Henry IV (Q5).
P HOTOGRAPH 2011 A RTHUR P HILLIPS . R EPRINTED BY PERMISSION .