Shakespeare’s art of mingling comedy, history and tragedy reached its peak in the two parts of King Henry the Fourth. As history, the plays paint a panorama of England, embracing a wider social range than any previous historical drama as the action moves from court to tavern, council chamber to battlefield, city to country, Archbishop and Lord Chief Justice to whore and thief. As comedy, they tell the story of a prodigal son’s journey from youth to maturity and an old rogue’s art of surviving by means of jokes, tall tales and the art of being not only witty in himself but ‘the cause that wit is in other men’. As tragedy, they reveal the slow decline of a king who cannot escape his past, the precipitate demise of an impetuous young warrior who embodies both the glory and the futility of military heroism, and the heart-breaking dismissal of a substitute father who has loved a prince with a warmth of which his true father is incapable.

William Shakespeare, also known as the "Bard of Avon," is often called England's national poet and considered the greatest dramatist of all time. Shakespeare's works are known throughout the world, but his personal life is shrouded in mystery.