'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.' Henry VI, Part II opens with a wedding and ends with a civil war, cycling through witchcraft, adultery, multiple murders, pirates, and an entire popular rebellion across its five acts. Its characters are larger-than-life, wielding curses as easily as they do swords or daggers, conjuring demons to seek prophetic knowledge, and transforming a struggle for the English throne into a cosmic blood feud between the houses of York and Lancaster. The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare's works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these volumes offer readers the latest thinking on the authentic texts (collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare's work) alongside innovative introductions from leading scholars. The texts are accompanied by a comprehensive set of critical apparatus to give readers the best resources to help understand and enjoy Shakespeare's work. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Kavita Mudan Finn is an independent researcher in medieval and early modern literature, popular medievalism, and fan/reception studies. She has published two books, The Last Plantagenet Consorts (2012) and Global Medievalism (2022), co-authored with Helen Young. Her work has appeared in Viator, Shakespeare, Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, Arthuriana, Critical Survey, The Journal of Fandom Studies, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Transformative Works & Cultures, and a range of edited volumes. She is a freelance editor and indexer, and is writing a biography of the fifteenth-century queen Elizabeth Woodville. Rory Loughnane is Reader in Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent. He is the author or editor of ten books and has published widely on Shakespeare. For the New Oxford Shakespeare, he has edited more than ten of Shakespeare's plays. He is a Series Editor of Studies in Early Modern Authorship and Shakespeare and Text, and a General Editor of The Revels Plays series and the forthcoming Oxford Marlowe edition.