The Tragedy of King Lear

For this updated critical edition of King Lear, Lois Potter has written a completely new introduction, taking account of recent productions and reinterpretations of the play, with particular emphasis on its afterlife in global performance and adaptation. The edition retains the Textual Analysis of the previous editor, Jay L. Halio, shortened and with a new preface by Brian Gibbons.  Professor Halio, accepting that we have two versions of equal authority, the one derived from Shakespeare's rough drafts, the other from a manuscript used in the playhouses during the seventeenth century, chooses the Folio as the text for this edition.  He explains the differences between the two versions and alerts the reader to the rival claims of the quarto by means of a sampling of parallel passages in the Introduction and by an appendix which contains annotated passages unique to the quarto.

Introduction; Textual Analysis; Preface by Brian Gibbons; Textual Analysis, Part 1; A Note on the Text; List of Characters; The Play; Textual Analysis, Part 2; Appendix: Passages Unique to the First Quarto; Reading List.

Lois Potter, Ned B. Allen Professor Emerita of the University of Delaware, has a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and a Ph.D. from Cambridge, where she was a Marshall Scholar. She has taught at the Universities of Aberdeen, Leicester, Paris III-Sorbonne-Nouvelle, and Tsuda College, Tokyo. She edited The Two Noble Kinsmen for the Arden Shakespeare and Pericles for the 3rd edition of the Norton Complete Works, and has published monographs on Milton, English Civil War literature, the theatrical history of Twelfth Night and Othello, and The Life of William Shakespeare, as well as editing two essay collections on Robin Hood.