Raphael Holinshed
died c. 1580
English chronicler, remembered chiefly because
his Chronicles enjoyed great popularity and
became a quarry for many Elizabethan dramatists,
especially Shakespeare, who found, in the second
edition, material for Macbeth, King Lear,
Cymbeline, and many of his historical plays.
Holinshed probably belonged to a Cheshire
family. From roughly 1560 he lived in London,
where he was employed as a translator by
Reginald Wolfe, who was preparing a universal
history. After Wolfe’s death in 1573 the scope
of the work was abridged, and it appeared, with
many illustrations, as the Chronicles of
England, Scotlande, and Irelande, 2 vol. (dated
1577).
The Chronicles was compiled largely
uncritically from many sources of varying
degrees of trustworthiness. The texts of the
first and second (1587) editions were expurgated
by order of the Privy Council, and the excisions
from the second edition were published
separately in 1723. An edition of the complete,
unexpurgated text of 1587, edited by Henry Ellis
and titled Holinshed’s Chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, was published in six
volumes (1807–08, reissued 1976). Several
selections have also appeared, including
Holinshed’s Chronicle as Used in Shakespeare’s
Plays, edited by Allardyce and Josephine Nicoll
(1927); Shakespeare’s Holinshed, compiled and
edited by Richard Hosley (1968); and The
Peaceable and Prosperous Regiment of Blessed
Queene Elisabeth (2005).
