died с 1580
English chronicler.
From с 1560 Holinshed lived in London, where he was employed as a translator by Reginald Wolfe, who was preparing a universal history. Holinshed is remembered for his Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande (1577), an abridged history he published after Wolfe's death, compiled largely uncritically from many sources of varying degrees of trustworthiness. It enjoyed great popularity and was quarried by Elizabethan dramatists, especially William Shakespeare , who drew on its second edition (1587) for Macbeth , King Lear , Cymbeline, and many of his historical plays.