Bővebb ismertető
INTRODUCTION.i. the date of the play.The earliest mention which we have of King Lear is an entry in the registers of the Stationers' Company. Up to the passing of the Copyright Act in 1842, the law required that every publication 1 should be entered in these registers, and accordingly, under the date of November 26, 1607, we find: "Entred A booke called Master William Shakespeare his historye of Kinge Lear as yt was played before the Kinges maiestie at Whitehall uppon Sainct Stephens night at Christmas Last by his maiesties servantes playinge usually at the Globe on the Banksyde ".There was a considerable interval between this entry of the play and its publication, for it was not till 1608 that it appeared in the usual small quarto form with the following imprint:London, Printed for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Churchyard at the signe of the Pide Bull neere St Austins Gate. 1608.That the publication was authorized either by Shakespeare himself or by the company of actors then playing at the Globe theatre there is no reason to suppose. It was the interest of the actors to guard their property in a new play as jealously as possible, and the longer it was before it got into print, the less likely it was to fall into the clutches of rival companies. Moreover, the curiosity of a possible spectator to see a new play might be blunted if he could first buy it in print and read it quietly at home. But in spite of all precautions taken in the interest of the theatre, enterprising booksellers, such as Nathaniel Butter, often managed to get a play, or a mutilated version of it, into print: either they bribed individual actors to lend the MS. of their parts, or they sent shorthand reporters to the performance, or resorted to some other roundabout contrivance. In fact, as far as we know, Shakespeare himself never took the troublev