Well written book, hard bound, cloth cover, archival 60# paper, fold out maps showing early Neff farms in Lancaster and Huntingdon Co's., PA and early Neff documents from the mid-1700's and early 1800's. Historically accurate and well documented. Printed by Princeton University Press. As of 2003, book is still in print and available.

First off, I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed Part I and absolutely adored Henry V. Having said that, I found Part II to be enjoyable, yet perhaps leaving something to be desired - like more action. Falstaff and Prince Hal both come off as somewhat disingenuous and calculating Machiavellian individuals. Disappointingly, Falstaff speaks poorly of Prince Hal while unwittingly in his midst. Conversely, The Prince of Wales prematurely takes the crown before his King Henry IV's death as well as disassociating himself with Falstaff after he is crowned King. These instances, along with others throughout the play, show the self-serving tendencies of both characters.

However, we can proudly witness the maturation of the young King from wild & dissolute young Prince Hal into one of the most revered monarchs in English history, King Henry V. Part II remains an intriguing play due to its paradoxical nature, yet unfortunately rarely acted out today. Now that I have read Henry IV(I&II) for the first time, I gladly move on to one of my personal favorites, Henry V. I recommend both parts(Folger editions) for all Shakespeare enthusiasts - they have given me greater insight into the young Henry V - when he was more concerned with downing a pint of ale rather than downing the French at Agincourt.

2 Magnificent Quotes from Henry IV Part II -
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." - King Henry IV
"He hath eaten me out of house and home." - Mistress Quickly

This is the play where Henry IV squashes the Percy rebellion but himself becomes ill and dies. So, Price Hal becomes King Henry V and this leads to the next play of that name.

The wonderful Falstaff is also on glorious display. This is also the play with the famous tavern scene (Act II, Scene IV) that can be read endlessly with new enjoyment.

Everyone has his or her own take on Falstaff and his treatment at the hands of Henry V, but I dislike it even though I understand it. Prince Hal and his transformation into Henry V is not someone I admire a lot. Nor is Falstaff's manner of living, but his wit is so sharp and his intelligence so vast that it is easy to still delight in him.

But, you certainly don't need me to tell you anything about Shakespeare. Like millions of other folks, I am in love with the writing. However, as all of us who read Shakespeare know, it isn't a simple issue. Most of us need help in understanding the text. There are many plays on words, many words no longer current in English and, besides, Shakespeare's vocabulary is richer than almost everyone else's who ever lived. There is also the issue of historical context, and the variations of text since the plays were never published in their author's lifetime.

For those of us who need that help and want to dig a bit deeper, the Arden editions of Shakespeare are just wonderful.

-Before the text of the play we get very readable and helpful essays discussing the sources and themes and other important issues about the play.

-In the text of the play we get as authoritative a text as exists with helpful notes about textual variations in other sources. We also get many many footnotes explaining unusual words or word plays or thematic points that would likely not be known by us reading in the 21st century.

-After the text we get excerpts from likely source materials used by Shakespeare and more background material to help us enrich our understanding and enjoyment of the play.

However, these extras are only available in the individual editions. If you buy the "Complete Plays" you get text and notes, but not the before and after material which add so much! Plus, the individual editions are easier to read from and handier to carry around.

henry iv is misnamed since the play isn't really about king henry but about his son, prince hal, and his enemies, especially henry percy (aka 'hotspur') who is a rival to hal. hotspur is one of the leaders of the rebellion against the king and, at a tender age, is already an accomplished soldier. his story provides the drama of the play. hal, on the other hand, has fallen out of favor with the king, and is whiling away his days in the company of dissolute company, led by sir john falstaff, one of shakespeare's great characters. his adventures with sir john provide the comic relief. fortunately for the king, hal sheds his prodigal ways in time to save his father and his crown in the battle at shrewsbury, where, coincidentally, hal meets and slays his rival, hotspur.

this is one of shakespeare's best plays. the story of the rebellion is intriguing, and the adventures of hal and falstaff are laugh-out-loud hilarious. the culmination of the two stories in the final battle scene is wonderful. this is a fitting sequel to richard ii.

note that there are some historical inaccuracies and even outright inventions in this play. foremost is the character of falstaff who is pure invention (and genius). the story of hal's adventures stems from his reputation, enhanced by legend, as a playboy. falstaff was the perfect foil for a carousing prince. the biggest inaccuracy is hotspur's age. he was actually of the generation of henry iv, and not as young as he's depicted in the play. shakespeare made him younger to enhance, maybe even create, the rivalry with hal. there are other inaccuracies here, but better for the reader to consult 'shakespeare's kings', an excellent book by saccio that explains the history of the period and the discrepancies in the play.

Alfred Chester, Head of a Sad Angel: Stories 1953-1966, edited by Edward Field (Black Sparrow, 1990)

Alfred Chester is something along the lines of the godfather of what we now know as eighties literature. Warmer than Bukowski, more detached than Faulkner, closer to the point than Sherwood Anderson ever got, the novels pumped out thirty years later by such authors as Ellis and McInerney could have been tarred by the same brush, though Chester mixed a kind of hard-boiled romance with his stark realism. And yet, as Edward Field reminds us in his introduction to the book's nonfiction appendix, Chester was almost totally forgotten by the time of his death in 1971, at the age of forty-three. The fact that an obscure, unknown, then-out-of-print writer could have still influenced a whole (albeit a bad) genre should tell us something: specifically, that Chester is possibly the most neglected important American writer of the twentieth century.

It seems to me that Chester became a forgotten writer as the stars of contemporaries such as Bukowski and Ferlinghetti were rising because Chester went the opposite way of such writers. What Buk et al. distilled from Faulkner was the no-nonsense prose, the ability to tell a tale in the elevated prose that marks poetry while keeping the work as readable as possible. This made Buk et al.'s work more accessible to the public, and thus it was ripe for mainstream consumption. Chester, on the other hand, wrote prose that's as close to poetry as one is ever likely to find; rather than work on the accessibility factor, Chester shuned the idea and mined the simple power of words, leaving them elevated, but unpolished. As such, Chester's stories often demand to be read at leisure, in small doses, and more often than not the writing is thick, many-layered, difficult; yet the reward is there. Chester was a profoundly good writer, and every story in this collection is a gem.

The second section of the book, comprising about seventy pages, is a series of reflections on Chester by those close to him during his descent into the madness that ultimately, though indirectly, caused his death. Such authors as Cynthia Ozick, Dennis Selby, Ira Cohen, and Robert Friend recount anything from one-page snatches of image to long essays on Chester's life. There's a lot of good material here (and it reinforces the autobiographical nature of Chester's work), but it seems to me that Chster's material could have stood on its own, and the biographical materil would have made for a good anthology-style biography of Chester.

The previously-mentioned descent is all too obvious in Chester's work. Early material is tight, ominous, less obtuse than the later work, and with more attentino paid to craft. "As I Was Going Up the Stair" is a horror story in the grand old tradition, but with a sense of newness about it that still rings fresh today; like the best of today's authors, Chester gives us not ghosts and ghouls, but the horrors of absence, of separation. This is stuff that should be in Norton Anthologies, without a doubt. In contrast, the fifty pages that have survived from Chester's final manuscript, "The Foot," show the contrast between the early, almost surreal prose of Chester's early career and the loose, ultra-realistic, somewhat rambling feel of later pages. I do agree with Robert Friend (despite how that last sentence sounds) that "The Foot" may well be the best thing Chester ever wrote; it's a perfect study in how to write a romance novel without a single drop of excess emotion. It is as beautiful, and as stark, as the cinematography in the film version of (Chester contemporary) Paul Bowles' landmark novel _The Sheltering Sky_. It seems that the landscape of Bowles' and Chester's Tunisia-- both were part of the early-sixties expatriate community in western Africa-- may have influenced Chester's writing more than even he knew.

This is very, very strong work, a piece of literary history America is in danger of losing, to its great detriment. Chester should be required reading for any short story writer. ****

This is a brillent collection of short stories written by one of the most talented authors and literary critics of the 20th century.

Weaving the variegated stories of a cast of characters, "The Exquisite Corpse" is a surreal tale of loneliness that paints vivid episodes, but doesn't seem to give a sense of wholeness, of completion to its tapestry. It's a bit like the energetic style of William Burroughs, but without the cohesion (for lack of a better term) his books contain. Yes, "The Exquisite Corpse" is quite fascinating and compels the reader on, but by the final page, the reader watches as the story flits away without leaving any imprint in the reader's mind. The novel is #78 of the 100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels.

I've read three books called Exquisite Corpse and they have all been excellent. This one was a little wierd and slightly hard to follow but it was an incredibly creative yet somehow realistic portrayal of the life some of the less fortunate in fates tend to lead. I intend to read every book called Exquisite Corpse that I can find.