Helps readers navigate King Lear's history and includes nine primary sources from which Shakespeare borrowed in creating his play, along with two additional likely sources. This title discusses the best-known and most-often discussed passages from Quarto I. It provides thirteen critical interpretations, and three adaptations and responses. Introduction vii The Text of King Lear 1(267) A Note on the Text 116(1) Textual Variants 117(20) Sources Primary Sources 137(23) From The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his three daughters 137(7) Anonymous From The Mirror for Magistrates 144(4) John Higgins From Chronicles 148(3) Raphael Holinshed From The Faerie Queene 151(2) Edmund Spenser From The Countesse of Pembroke's Arcadia 153(3) Sir Philip Sidney James VI of Scotland • From The True Law of Free Monarchies 156(1) From Basilikon Doron 157(1) James I From A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures 158(1) Samuel Harsnett From Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine 158(2) William Camden Possible Sources 160(108) The Case of Cordell Annesley and Her Father, Bryan 160(2) From Historia Regum Britanniae 162(7) Geoffrey of Monmouth Criticism Preface, The History of King Lear 169(1) Nahum Tate Notes on King Lear 170(2) Samuel Johnson From On the Tragedies of Shakespeare 172(1) Charles Lamb From Characters of Shakespeare's Plays: King Lear 173(2) William Hazlitt From Shakespearean Tragedy 175(2) A. C. Bradley From Shakespeare Our Contemporary 177(2) Jan Kott From The Empty Space 179(2) Peter Brook Quarto and Folio King Lear and the Interpretation of Albany and Edgar 181(13) Michael Warren From The Father and the Bride in Shakespeare 194(15) Lynda E. Boose From Suffocating Mothers 209(18) Janet Adelman ``Demystifying the Mystery of State'': King Lear and the World Upside Down 227(13) Margot Heinemann From Hamlet versus Lear 240(3) R. A. Foakes From The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear 243(14) Stanley Cavell Adaptations and Responses From The History of King Lear 257(4) Nahum Tate On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again 261(1) John Keats From Lear 262(6) Edward Bond Selected Bibliography 268