| Series Introduction | p. ix |
| Volume Introduction | p. xi |
| Biography of William Shakespeare | p. 1 |
| Summary of King Lear | p. 5 |
| Key Passages in King Lear | p. 23 |
| List of Characters in King Lear | p. 49 |
| Criticism through the Ages | p. 51 |
| King Lear in the Seventeenth Century | p. 53 |
| 1681-Nahum Tate. From The History of King Lear | p. 54 |
| 1699-James Drake. From The Antient and Modern Stages Surveyed | p. 71 |
| King Lear in the Eighteenth Century | p. 73 |
| 1710-Charles Gildon. From Remarks on the Plays of Shakespear | p. 74 |
| 1715-Lewis Theobald. "Remarks on King Lear," from The Censor | p. 75 |
| 1735-Aaron Hill. From The Prompter | p. 79 |
| 1753-Joseph Warton. From The Adventurer | p. 83 |
| 1768-Samuel Johnson. From Notes on Shakespear's Plays | p. 93 |
| 1775-Elizabeth Griffith. "Lear," from The Morality of Shakespeare's Drama Illustrated | p. 95 |
| 1784-William Richardson. "On the Dramatic Character of King Lear," from Essays on Some of Shakespeare's Dramatic Characters | p. 96 |
| King Lear in the Nineteenth Century | p. 99 |
| 1809-August Wilhelm Schlegel. "Criticisms on Shakspeare's Tragedies," from Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature | p. 100 |
| 1812-Charles Lamb. "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare," from The Reflector | p. 103 |
| 1817-William Hazlitt. "Lear," from Characters of Shakespear's Plays | p. 104 |
| 1818-Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Lear," from Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets | p. 110 |
| 1818-John Keats. "On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again" | p. 115 |
| 1833-Anna Jameson. "Cordelia," from Shakspeare's Heroines: Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, & Historical | p. 115 |
| 1838-Charles Dickens. "The Restoration of Shakespeare's Lear to the Stage," from The Examiner | p. 116 |
| 1864-Victor Hugo. William Shakespeare | p. 119 |
| 1875-Edward Dowden. "Lear," from Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art | p. 122 |
| 1880-Algernon Charles Swinburne. A Study of Shakespeare | p. 134 |
| 1883-Alfred Lord Tennyson. Some Criticisms on Poets, Memoir by His Son | p. 137 |
| King Lear in the Twentieth Century | p. 139 |
| 1904-A. C. Bradley. "King Lear," from Shakespearean Tragedy | p. 141 |
| 1906-Leo Tolstoy. "On Shakespeare" | p. 156 |
| 1913-Sigmund Freud. "The Theme of the Three Caskets," from Imago | p. 163 |
| 1920-Alexander Blok. "Shakespeare's King Lear: An Address to the Actors" | p. 164 |
| 1930-G. Wilson Knight. "The Lear Universe," from The Wheel of Fire | p. 169 |
| 1947-George Orwell. "Lear, Tolstoy, and the Fool," from Polemic | p. 195 |
| 1949-John F. Danby. "Cordelia as Nature," from Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature: A Study of King Lear | p. 200 |
| 1951-Harold C. Goddard. "King Lear," from The Meaning of Shakespeare | p. 213 |
| 1966-William R. Elton. "Deus Absconditus: Lear," from King Lear and the Gods | p. 246 |
| 1974-Joyce Carol Oates. "'Is This the Promised End?': The Tragedy of King Lear," from Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism | p. 270 |
| 1986-Northrop Frye. "King Lear," from Northrop Frye on Shakespeare | p. 288 |
| 1988-Harold Bloom. "Introduction," from King Lear (Modern Critical Interpretations) | p. 304 |
| 1992-Harold Bloom. "Introduction," from King Lear (Major Literary Characters) | p. 311 |
| King Lear in the Twenty-first Century | p. 321 |
| 2004-Sean Lawrence. "'Gods That We Adore': The Divine in King Lear," from Renascence | p. 321 |
| Works Cited | p. 337 |
| Bibliography | p. 341 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 343 |
| Index | p. 345 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |