The History of King Lear
The History of King Lear is an adaptation by Nahum Tate of William Shakespeare's "King Lear". It first appeared in 1681, some seventy-five years after Shakespeare's version, and is believed to have replaced Shakespeare's version on the English stage in whole or in part until 1838.
Nahum Tate
Tate then turned to making a series of adaptations of Elizabethan dramas. His version of William Shakespeare's "Richard II" altered the names of the characters, and changed the text so that every scene, to use his own words, was "full of respect to Majesty and the dignity of courts"; but in spite of these precautions "The Sicilian Usurper" (1681), as his rewrite was called, was suppressed on the third performance on account of a possible political interpretation. In 1681 Thomas Betterton played Tate's version of "King Lear", which entirely omitted the Fool, and ended happily in marriage between Cordelia and Edgar. (Though Joseph Addison protested at this mutilation of Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson defended the poetic justice of Tate's adaptation.)"Coriolanus" became "The Ingratitude of a Commonwealth", played at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1682. Tate's farce "Duke and no Duke" (first printed 1685, but acted earlier at the Theatre Royal) imitated Sir Aston Cockayne's "Trappolin suppos'd a Prince". His "Cuckold's Haven" (performed 1685 at the Theatre Royal) was derived from Chapman and Marston's "Eastward Ho". "The Island Princess, or the Generous Portugals" (1687) was adapted from John Fletcher. "Injur'd Love, or the Cruel Husband" (1707), altered from Webster's "The White Devil", seems never to have been acted.