A review by ian_2
King Henry VI Part 1: Third Series by E. Burns, William Shakespeare

3.0

I read this during the last two weeks of 2024, but forgot to note it on Goodreads. Second time that I've read it. I've lowered the personal rating from four to three stars. There's some beautiful writing, but it's sluggish at times. The biggest problem for me was the number of characters; I tried counting them, but this is impossible given the number of unspecified porters, guards, soldiers and suchlike. I did an Internet search and found that Henry VI Part I is only almost the most character-heavy of Shakespeare's plays. Henry VI Part II evidently has more. The Wars of the Roses involved many people, of course, but I don't think the play really needed to provide a role for every English noble living at the time of the story. Overpopulation tends to dull the progress of the plot and make things unnecessarily difficult to follow.