King Lear
Edition. 4to, 1608; 4to, 1608; 4to, 1608; in the folio, 1623.
Date. Certainly posterior to 1603, in which year appeared Harsnet’s Discovery of Popish Impostures, from which Shakespeare evidently took the names of the fiends mentioned by Edgar. There is an entry of it in the Stationers’ Registers, November 26th, 1607, in which it is stated that it had been played before the King on the night of St. Stephen’s Day in the preceding year. The latest date of its composition, then, that we can suppose is 1606.
Origin. Hollinshed, Mirror of Magistrates, and an old play on the same subject. The episode of Gloster and his sons was taken from Sidney’s Arcadia, ii. 10.