《李尔王》是威廉·莎士比亚四大悲剧之一，叙述了年事已高的李尔王意欲把国土分给3个女儿，口蜜腹剑的大女儿高纳里尔和二女儿里根赢其宠信而瓜分国土，小女儿考狄利娅却因不愿阿谀奉承而一无所得。前来求婚的法兰西国王慧眼识人，娶考狄利娅为皇后。李尔王离位，大女儿和二女儿居然不给其栖身之地，当年的国王只好到荒郊野外……考狄利娅率队攻入，父女团圆。但战事不利，考狄利娅被杀死，李尔王守着心爱的小女儿的尸体悲痛地死去。本书内容包括如何阅读《李尔王》,《李尔王》如何被搬上舞台,改编的情况,以及原文和注释.

Reading and staging King Lear Responses and reworkings

The inception of King Lear

Texts of King Lear

Revision and adaptation in King Lear

Casting King Lear

Usages in this edition

Appendix 1: Two textual problems

Appendix 2: Lineation

R.A. Foakes is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also taught or held fellowships at Yale, Birmingham, Durham, Kent, Toronto, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Australian National University, Canberra. His publications include Shakespeare, The Dark Comedies to the Last Plays and Illustrations of the English Stage 1580-1642, as well as editions of Henry Ⅷ and the Comedy of Errors, for the second Arden series, Troilus and Cressida and Much Ado About Nothing (The New Penguin Shakespeare) and A Midsummer Nights Dream (New Cambridge Shakespeare). He has written extensively on King Lear in his book, Hamlet versus Lear; Cultural Politics and Shakespeares Art (1993)