Riverside Shakespeare Company
In 1985 the Riverside Shakespeare Company presented the New York premiere of "The History of King Lear", adapted with a happy ending by 18th-century English Poet Laureate, Nahum Tate, from William Shakespeare's "King Lear". The production was directed by W. Stuart McDowell, produced by Andrew B. Harris, who had joined Riverside as its executive director at the beginning of the season.
Thomas Bowdler
The Bowdlers were not the first to undertake such a project. Bowdler's commitment to not augmenting or adding to Shakespeare's text, instead only removing sensitive material, was in contrast with the practice of earlier editors. Nahum Tate as Poet Laureate had rewritten the tragedy of "King Lear" with a happy ending; In 1807, Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb published "Tales from Shakespeare" for children with synopses of 20 of the plays, but seldom quoted the original text. Though "The Family Shakespeare" was considered a negative example of censorship by the literary establishment and its commitment to the "authentic" Shakespeare, the Bowdlers' expurgated editions made it more acceptable to teach Shakespeare to wider and younger audiences. As said by the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, "More nauseous and more foolish cant was never chattered than that which would deride the memory or depreciate the merits of Bowdler. No man ever did better service to Shakespeare than the man who made it possible to put him into the hands of intelligent and imaginative children".