Aging King Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters based on their declarations of love, only to be betrayed by those he trusts most. Cast into madness and stripped of power, he wanders a storm-torn world that mirrors his inner collapse. In William Shakespeare’s King Lear, themes of loyalty, blindness, and authority unfold—revealing the fragility of family, the burden of pride, and the harsh consequences of misjudgment.
Date: 1606 (United Kingdom)
Length: ~384 pages (varies by edition)
Cultural impact: ~11.450.000 copies (estimates)
Genre: Poetry & Drama, Classics
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"King Lear is the most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world" — Percy Bysshe Shelley, influential English Romantic poet and critic
"The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension, but in intellectual... his mind with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid bare" — Charles Lamb, influential English essayist and critic
"Lear is extraordinary and daunting. Lear is the Everest of the plays" — James Shapiro, prominent American Shakespeare scholar and historian
"King Lear is, in my view, the greatest of all Shakespeare's plays" — William Hazlitt, renowned English essayist and literary critic
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