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printer (Nicholas Okes) was unaccustomed to setting plays and also because it seems to derive from Shakespeare’s own working manuscript, which would have been difficult to read. Quarto includes about 300 lines that are not in the 1623 Folio text, which was entitled “The Tragedy of King Lear,” and has clear signs of derivation from the theatrical playbook (though, to complicate matters, the Folio printing was also influenced by a reprint of the Quarto that appeared in 1619 as one of the ten plays published by Thomas Pavier in an attempt to produce a collected Shakespeare). The Folio in turn has about 100 lines that are not in the Quarto, and nearly 1,000 lines have variations of word or phrase. The two early texts thus represent two different stages in the life of the play, with extensive revision having been carried out, either systematically or incrementally. Revisions include diminution of the prominence given to the invading French army (perhaps for political reasons), clarification of Lear’s motives for dividing his kingdom, and weakening of the role of Albany (including reassignment from him to Edgar of the play’s closing speech, and thus byimplication—since it was a convention of Shakespearean tragedy that the new man in power always has the last word—of the right to rule Britain). Among the more striking cuts are the mock trial of Goneril in the hovel and the moment of compassion when loyal servants apply a palliative to Gloucester’s bleeding eyes. For centuries, editors have conflated the Quarto and Folio texts, creating a play that Shakespeare never wrote. We endorse the body of scholarship since the 1980s and the new editorial tradition in which Folio and Quarto are regarded as discrete entities. We have edited the more theatrical Folio text but have corrected its errors (which are plentiful, since much of it was set in type by “Compositor E,” the apprentice who was by far the worst printer in Isaac Jaggard’s shop). The influence of Quarto copy on the Folio is of great assistance in making these corrections. Textual notes are perforce more numerous than for any other work by Shakespeare; several hundred Quarto variants are listed. All the most significant Quarto-only passages are printed at the end of the play.

THE TRAGEDY
OF KING LEAR

LIST OF PARTS
    LEAR , King of Britain
    GONERIL , Lear’s eldest daughter
    REGAN , Lear’s middle daughter
    CORDELIA , Lear’s youngest daughter
    Duke of ALBANY , Goneril’s husband
    Duke of CORNWALL , Regan’s husband
    King of FRANCE , suitor and later husband to Cordelia
    Duke of BURGUNDY , suitor to Cordelia
    Earl of KENT , later disguised as Caius
    Earl of GLOUCESTER
    EDGAR , Gloucester’s son, later disguised as Poor Tom
    EDMUND , Gloucester’s illegitimate son
    OLD MAN , Gloucester’s tenant
    CURAN , Gloucester’s retainer
    Lear’s FOOL
    OSWALD , Goneril’s steward
    GENTLEMAN , a Knight serving Lear
    GENTLEMAN , attendant on Cordelia
    SERVANT of Cornwall
    HERALD
    CAPTAIN
    Knights attendant upon Lear, other Attendants, Messengers, Soldiers, Servants, and Trumpeters

TEXTUAL NOTES
    Q = First Quarto text of 1608
    F = First Folio text of 1623
    F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632
    Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor
    SD = stage direction
    SH = speech heading (i.e. speaker’s name)
    List of parts = Ed
    EDMUND
sometimes spelled
Edmond,
often referred to in directions and speech headings as
Bastard
    1.1.30 SD
one … then
= Q.
Not in
F 33 lord = F. Q = Liege 36 fast = F. Q = first 37 age = F. Q = state 38 Conferring = F. Q = Confirming strengths = F. Q = yeares 38–43 while … now = F.
Not in
Q 47–48 Since … state = F.
Not in
Q 57 found = F. Q = friend 62–63 and … rivers = F.
Not in
Q 66 of Cornwall = F. Q = to
Cornwell
, speake 77 ponderous = F. Q = richer 81 conferred = F. Q = confirm’d 82 our … love = F. Q = the last, not least in our deere loue 84 interessed = Ed. F = interest draw = F.