In this edition, R.A. Foakes brings to bear a number of historical perspectives and critically addresses recent explorations of "King Lear" as a play of redemption, a play of despair and a play that destabilises all commentary.

The Arden Shakespeare has long set the gold standard in annotated, scholarly editions of Shakespeare's plays. Each Arden edition in the Third Series offers a modernized text with comprehensive commentary notes glossing meanings, discussing staging issues and explaining literary allusions, together with a lengthy, illustrated introduction by a leading scholar exploring the play's critical, theatrical and historical contexts. Praise for the series: "The gold standard for modern editorial scholarship." – Sixteenth Century Journal "One of the best regarded scholarly editions of Shakespeare's plays." – The Times "One of the landmark publishing ventures of our time ... The care for standards, and meticulous attention to detail ... have made the Arden Shakespeare one of the great achievements of modern literary scholarship." – The New Criterion "Arden 3 stands as a book of memory and of aspiration, a record of our progress as a field and a profession, and a reminder of how much further we have to go ... Editorial practices developed in the Third Series established a precedent for innovation and discipline while producing texts that engaged readers with the most exciting advances of early modern textual studies." – Shakespeare Survey "[A] priceless contribution to Shakespeare studies ... The Arden editions, attractively produced and increasingly weighty, have become, so to speak, the market standard, the first port of call for students and academics alike." – SEDERI, Yearbook of the Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies