King Lear is one of Shakespeare's most performed and studied plays - seen as one of the most significant and universal tragedies of all time. This guide introduces the play's critical and performance history, including notable stage productions alongside TV, film and radio versions.  It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays.  Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further individual research.

Series Introduction \ King Lear Timeline \ Introduction \ 1. The Critical Backstory, Joan Fitzpatrick (Loughborough University, UK) \ 2. Performance History, Ramona Wray (Queen's University Belfast, UK) \ 3. The State of the Art, Philippa Kelly (University of New South Wales, Australia) \ 4. New Directions: Bowdlerizing and Borrowing: Finding Bits of Lear on the 19th and 20th Century Stage, Lori-Anne Ferrell (Claremont Graduate School, USA) \ 5. New Directions: 'The Promised End': King Lear and millenarian/utopian ideas in the early seventeenth century, Anthony Parr (University of Western Cape, SA) \ 6. New Directions: King Lear and Protestantism, John J. Norton (Concordia University, USA) \ 7. New Directions: King Lear as 'British' play, Willy Maley (University of Glasgow, UK) \ 8. Resources, Peter Sillitoe (De Montfort University, UK) \ Notes on Contributors \ Index

Andrew Hiscock is Professor of English at Bangor University, UK.

Lisa Hopkins is Professor of English at University of Sheffield Hallam. She has published numerous works on Shakespeare including her most recent work, Beginning Shakespeare (2005) and has written on film adaptations including Screening the Gothic. She is the Senior Editor of the online journal, Early Modern Literary Studies.