King Lear (Modern Library Classics)

First off, King Lear has always been my favorite play, followed closely by Othello and After The Fall. I like comic books, but I'm skeptical of the "Illustrated Classics" approach. So I was a bit leery buying this (pun unintended, but not bad).

It's fantastic. The art is lovely and has a timeless, surreal quality. The stylizations only enhance it. Especially watch the Fool: he's always been one of the best of Shakespeare's characters, and the capering, size-changing, conjuring presence Ian Pollock has granted him lifts him above and beyond. This artist knows what he's doing and is worth watching.

As for the writer: well, I know he's got name-recognition, but people often wonder if he's any good. But this Shakespeare guy, I think he's got potential. I mean, the slant rhyme and Jedi syntax bugs me sometimes, but otherwise, he has skills worthy of his art.

I purchased this book for a class. However the latter was not the correct version, so I purchased another King Lear from a local bookshop. This book was brand new, and the shipping time was reasonable.

This is a mostly engaging and interesting book. The middle is fuzzy and too complicated. On the whole, high quality of writing and humor, with some (spoilers) tragic (and hilariously drawn-out) deaths. Act 4 is lackluster and oh-so-convoluted. Act 3 never ends. Four stars out of five.

This book is fantastic. I absolutely love that they used the complete and unabridged play. Ian Pollack's illustrations are amazing, and perfect for the tone and mood of this play. I would like to purchase more plays from this series, however the only two I can find are King Lear and Macbeth. If there are others, please let me know!

Side by side pages of Shakespearian text and modern interpretation make for interesting study. I purchased this book for my child who has little or no background in Shakespeare. She found it a very helpful means to prepare for a visit to Ashland, Oregon for the Shakespeare Festival and a performance of Lear.
I didn't give it four or five stars because there were points in the text where I thought that the interpreter got it wrong. That's a subjective judgement, but so is an interpretation or a translation.

The title says "(Annotated)". I have it on my Kindle reader, and I haven't seen any annotations yet. I gave it 2 stars rather than 1 because it's only $0.99, so at least I didn't spend much money on it.

This is a perfectly competent edition of King Lear. It's one of Shakespeare's best plays and I highly recommend it in any edition. The quality as a Kindle book is also good. I've downloaded some free Shakespeare plays where the text is just a mess and this is definitely not the case here. Everything is neat and clean. That said, it's also a very minimal version of the text in that it contains...just the text. If you're looking for notes, you won't find any, though that's to be expected in this price range. The disappointing thing here is that it doesn't have any line numbers, meaning that anyone hoping to use this in an academic setting will have some difficulty. My plan if I end up writing a paper on it will be to just search the lines I want to use online to get the line numbers there, but it seems like something that should have been included. Otherwise, this is a great affordable version of the text. I mainly got it because I am currently studying in a foreign country and very suddenly needed Lear for a class. I already owned a copy at home, so I wanted to find as cheap an edition as possible, and this worked out fine.

This No Fear Shakespeare version of King Lear is great. I've read the play several times, and seen it performed at least twice, but I've gotten more out of the story from this version than any of the other versions. The translation to modern English is perfect. I found myself going back and forth between Shakespeare's original and the translation quite often, but only to fully appreciate the poetry of Elizabethan language. By reading this unique page to page translation, you really get a fuller picture of the genius of Shakespeare's writing, for one side focuses on the action and characterization while the other side is the original in its poetic form.

This book is just one in the "No Fear" Series. These books bring the plays back to everyday people--who were the majority of the Bard's audience at the public theatres in London 400 years ago. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wishes to understand Shakespeare's works. I've also read "Twelfth Night" and "Romeo and Juliet" in this series, both of which are good. I plan to read others as well.

I bought this edition as a teaching supplement, not realizing that it is the folio version of the play. The words "quarto" and "folio" refer to the size of the pages in the two editions. Many secondary schools and universities use the quarto edition and a lot is left out of the folio--this version cuts out three hundred lines and adds one hundred new ones. The effect is that it alters the way the characters are shown. If you are reading the play with a class and they have a quarto version, while you are using your trusty teacher's Cambridge, chances are there will be a lot of blank expressions and confusion on their faces. The lines they see will not jibe with yours. The extra articles and class activities are great though--just make sure that if you use the Cambridge, you have your students buy only folio editions.

This is a perfectly competent edition of King Lear. It's one of Shakespeare's best plays and I highly recommend it in any edition. The quality as a Kindle book is also good. I've downloaded some free Shakespeare plays where the text is just a mess and this is definitely not the case here. Everything is neat and clean. That said, it's also a very minimal version of the text in that it contains...just the text. If you're looking for notes, you won't find any, though that's to be expected in this price range. The disappointing thing here is that it doesn't have any line numbers, meaning that anyone hoping to use this in an academic setting will have some difficulty. My plan if I end up writing a paper on it will be to just search the lines I want to use online to get the line numbers there, but it seems like something that should have been included. Otherwise, this is a great affordable version of the text. I mainly got it because I am currently studying in a foreign country and very suddenly needed Lear for a class. I already owned a copy at home, so I wanted to find as cheap an edition as possible, and this worked out fine.

This No Fear Shakespeare version of King Lear is great. I've read the play several times, and seen it performed at least twice, but I've gotten more out of the story from this version than any of the other versions. The translation to modern English is perfect. I found myself going back and forth between Shakespeare's original and the translation quite often, but only to fully appreciate the poetry of Elizabethan language. By reading this unique page to page translation, you really get a fuller picture of the genius of Shakespeare's writing, for one side focuses on the action and characterization while the other side is the original in its poetic form.

This book is just one in the "No Fear" Series. These books bring the plays back to everyday people--who were the majority of the Bard's audience at the public theatres in London 400 years ago. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wishes to understand Shakespeare's works. I've also read "Twelfth Night" and "Romeo and Juliet" in this series, both of which are good. I plan to read others as well.

I bought this edition as a teaching supplement, not realizing that it is the folio version of the play. The words "quarto" and "folio" refer to the size of the pages in the two editions. Many secondary schools and universities use the quarto edition and a lot is left out of the folio--this version cuts out three hundred lines and adds one hundred new ones. The effect is that it alters the way the characters are shown. If you are reading the play with a class and they have a quarto version, while you are using your trusty teacher's Cambridge, chances are there will be a lot of blank expressions and confusion on their faces. The lines they see will not jibe with yours. The extra articles and class activities are great though--just make sure that if you use the Cambridge, you have your students buy only folio editions.

This paperback is a handy edition of Shakespeare's great play, useful for students on all levels. The critical essays in the back are helpful, though one or two more recent ones could have been included.