G. K. Hunter Livres

This new edition is based on the quarto, the version closest to the original manuscript. The introduction illminates the plays' origins and practicalities of composition, its reception and influence. Detailed notes pay especial attention to language and staging, and the volume includes King Lear's first derivative, a contemporary ballad, and guides to appreciation of the play and its multiple offshoots.

This work is a classic Renaissance tale, taken largely from Boccaccio's Decameron, and concerns unrequited love, love renounced and love triumphant. It contains a fully developed sub-plot, concerning the worthless braggart Parolles, which is comically inventive.