Note 20 — LECTURE II
Reading edition
When the subject comes from English history, and especially when the play forms one of a series, some knowledge may be assumed. So in Richard III. Even in Richard II. not a little knowledge seems to be assumed, and this fact points to the existence of a popular play on the earlier part of Richard's reign. Such a play exists, though it is not clear that it is a genuine Elizabethan work. See the Jahrbuch d. deutschen Sh.-gesellschaft for 1899.