INTRODUCTION

In this edition of the play of King Lear my first object has been to give a text as good as possible. At the foot of each page I have endeavoured to show how the early editions of the play, on which a text must be formed, differ from each other, and when the old text has to be changed, to record such change, with the name of the editor who first introduced it, and the suggester of it (if any). Though the work of collating the early editions has been already admirably done,-in 1866 by Mr. W. G. Clark and Mr. W. Aldis-Wright in the Cambridge Shakespeare, and afterwards by Mr. H. H. Furness in his edition of King Lear, the fifth volume of his Variorum Shakespeare (1880), -I thought it best to carefully collate the first edition of the play, Quarto 1 (the Pide Bull edition), 1608, with the second edition, Quarto 2 (the N. Butter edition), 1608, and again to collate each of these editions of the play independently, with its text in the first edition of the works of Shakespeare (the first Folio, 1623), where it was for the third time printed.1 I have also recorded all but the minutest differences in the texts of some differing copies of Quarto I, and a few readings in the Quarto of

1 It stands between Hamlet and Othello: the last page of Hamlet is 282 (misprinted 280); the first page of Othello is 310, and is printed on the back of the last page of Lear. The page-numbers run from 283 to 309 (308 is misprinted 38).

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1655, and of the text of the play in the three later Folios; but for this part of my work I wish here to acknowledge my obligations to the Cambridge Shakespeare, to which great work and to Mr. Furness I am indebted for much information which is to be found given in my notes, though I have always endeavoured to verify it. I must also express my obligations to Malone's Variorum edition, Boswell, 1821.

In my notes Q standing alone indicates the two Quartos of 1608 in agreement, QI the first published edition of 1608 (the Pide Bull edition), Q 2 the second published edition of that year (the N. Butter edition). By F is indicated the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays (the first Folio edition of 1623).

F 2, F 3, and F 4 refer to editions of our poet published in 1632, 1664, and 1685 (the second, third, and fourth Folios).

I have almost ignored Jane Bell's 1655 reprint of Quarto 2, as it is almost, if not quite, worthless, but when it is quoted it is indicated as Q 3.

I have very seldom ventured to introduce new readings. At IV. vi. 202 I have inserted the word “for," which seems to me to have dropped out of the text. At IV. i. 60 I adopt the form "Hoberdidance" as that is the form found in Harsnett's Declaration; "Hobbididence" has only the support of the Quartos, as the passage in which it occurs is not in the Folio. At III. vi. 33, however, I think it is best to retain " Hoppedance" of the Quartos.

I have placed hyphens between the words "stubborn " and "ancient" at II. ii. 130; and between the words "clamour" and "moistened" at IV. iii. 32-in both cases