King Lear

General Editors:

Charlotte Brewer, Hertford College, Oxford
H. R. Woudhuysen, University College London
Daniel Karlin, University of Sheffield

King Lear, Shakespeares supremely powerful exploration of kingship, family and madness, has long been acknowledged as one of his greatest works. However, the existence of the play in two distinct versions - the Quarto of 1608 and the Folio of 1623 - has also provided a fascinating puzzle for generations of scholars. How do differences in Quarto and Folio alter our understanding of the play and affect the way it is performed? Did censorship lie behind major textual absences in Folio? And what can we infer about Shakespeares working practices from the two versions?

This edition of King Lear provides fully annotated, modern-spelling versions of the Quarto and Folio texts of the play, printed in parallel on facing pages. By highlighting the differences between the two versions, the reader can engage directly with the problems raised by them and consider current thinking about the play.

In a closely argued introduction, Ren Weis re-examines the continuing textual and bibliographical debate on the relationship between The History of King Lear (Q) and The Tragedy of King Lear (F) and considers the case for and against revision. This revised and updated edition also contains an illuminating new essay in which Weis subjects a number of key Q / F variants to close palaeographic analyses, arguing that they reflect different guesses at Shakespeares foul papers.

Ren Weis is Professor of English at University College London. His most recent book is Shakespeare Revealed: A Biography (2007). He is currently editing Romeo and Julietfor the Arden Shakespeare.