This volume includes the text of the play as prepared by Craig Walker for The Broadview Anthology of British Literature—a text notable both for outstanding introductory material and annotations, and for the inclusion of parallel text versions of key scenes for which the texts in the Quarto and Folio versions are substantially different.

Appendices in this edition include excerpts from key Shakespearean source material such as the anonymous True Chronicle History of King Leir, Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae; excerpts from Samuel Harsnett's A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures; materials from the Annesley Case; and the happy ending from Nahum Tate's version of the play, which held the stage for 150 years after its first performance in 1681.

This is one of several Broadview Anthology of British Literature Editions being released this year; those wishing to teach the text will have the option of including the convenient stand-alone book as part of a specially-priced shrink-wrapped package together with a volume of the anthology.

Comments:

"The Broadview chooses the Folio as the basic text, but, significantly, adds notes throughout that point out the differences appearing in the Quarto version. In addition, in the case of the three scenes in which differences are most pronounced, the anthology prints both Folio and Quarto versions side by side. This method opens up illuminating and exciting possibilities in the classroom.... I regard the unhesitating confrontation with the difficulties of King Lear that is shown by the Broadview editors as a microcosmic illustration of the toughness, determination, and conscientiousness of the editors throughout this entire British literature anthology." - Robert H. Ray, Baylor University (author of Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare's King Lear)

Contributing Editor Craig Walker is Associate Professor of Drama at Queen's University and is the author of The Buried Astrolabe: Canadian Dramatic Imagination and Western Tradition (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001).

Table of Contents: [Back to Top]

Introduction

William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

A Note on the Text

King Lear

Appendix A: Facsimile Pages

1. Title page and opening page, King Lear, First Quarto Edition
2. Title page, 1623 Folio and opening page, King Lear, Folio Edition

Appendix B: The Shakespearean Theater

1. The Swan Theater, sketch
2. Titus Andronicus in Performance, illustration
3. The Plot of The Seven Deadly Sins

Appendix C: King Lear: Sources and Analogues

1. From Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, Book 2, Sections 30-32
2. Cap O’Rushes
3. From Anonymous, The True Chronicle Historie of King Leir and his Three Daughters
4. From Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland
5. From Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
6. The Annesley Case
7. From Samuel Harsnett, A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures

Appendix D: King Lear: Seventeenth-Century Reception History

1. Richard Johnson, "The Ballad of King Lear and his Three Daughters"
2. From Nahum Tate, The History of King Lear