Cover -- Copyright and Licence -- Title Page -- Frontispiece -- Contents -- The Author -- Preface -- 1. The Education of a Player and Playwright -- 2. Richard II in Context -- 3. Alignments and Allegiances -- 4. Theatrical Conventions -- 4.1. Scenic Structure -- 4.2. Texture -- 4.3. Verse and Personality (or Inwardness) -- 5. Close reading -- 5.1. The Duel and Bolingbroke's Banishment (1.1-4) -- 5.2 The Death of Gaunt, Richard in Ireland, and Bolingbroke's Return (2.1-3.1) -- 5.3. Richard's Return (3.2) -- 5.4. Confrontation and Abdication (3.3-4.1) -- 5.5. Richard to Prison and Aumerle's Conspiracy (5.1-3) -- 5.6. Richard's Passion and Death and Bolingbroke's Reaction (5.4-5.6) -- 6. Critical accounts -- 6.1. Lyricism and the elegiac -- 6.2. Historical and Political -- 6.3. Feminist Readings -- 6.4. Theatrical Readings -- 7. Select annotated Bibliography -- Insights.