TRAGEDY OF

KING LEAR.

EDITED, WITH NOTES,

BY

WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M.,

FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

ENGLISH

CLASSICS.

EDITED BY WM. J. ROLFE, A.M.

Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, 60 cents per volume; Paper, 40 cents per volume.

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.

Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price.

Copyright, 1880, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

PREFACE.

I HAVE little to say by way of preface to this edition of King Lear except that, as in the case of Macbeth, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, I have been under constant obligations to Furness's "New Variorum" edition, in which I have found a good part of my work done to my hand. I have depended on it almost entirely for the collation of the early and modern texts, and in the Notes I have been indebted to it for much valuable matter which I could hardly have found for myself. For the benefit of the teacher, who cannot afford to do without this encyclopædic edition, I have referred to it in many cases where my limits forbade my borrowing from it further.

In my text I have followed the folio of 1623 almost as closely as Furness has done; but I have not hesitated to vary from it whenever another reading seemed to me unquestionably better. Those who are disposed to take greater liberties with the original text can choose for themselves among the varia lectiones recorded in the Notes, or try their own hands at emendation if they will.

Cambridge, Sept. 6, 1880.