The Story of King Lear

A perfectly balanced retelling of one of Shakespeare's best plays

You used to have everything and now you have nothing. Who’s madder than you?

Old King Lear has decided to retire from his royal duties. He calls his three daughters to him, and asks each to tell him how much they love him. The eldest two, Goneril and Regan, flatter him with their words. Cordelia – the youngest and, until now, his favourite – only says that she loves him as a daughter must love her father. Furious, he disinherits her and divides his kingdom between her two sisters. But Goneril and Regan turn against Lear, forcing him to wander in the wilderness with only his court jester for company, desperately hoping for a reconciliation with Cordelia…

Translated from the Italian by Virginia Jewiss
104 pp
Published 30/10/2014
ISBN 9781782690207
Pushkin Children’s Special Hardback
£14.99

About Save the Story

The Story of Captain Nemo is one of ten titles in the Save the Story series published by Pushkin Children’s in 2013 and 2014. Save the Story is a library of favourite stories from around the world, retold for today’s children by some of the best contemporary writers. The stories they retell span cultures (from Ancient Greece to nineteenth-century Russia), time and genres (from comedy and romance to mythology and the realist novel), and they have inspired all manner of artists for many generations.

Save the Story is a mission in book form: saving great stories from oblivion by retelling them for a new, younger generation.

The Save the Story series includes:

Don Juan by Alessandro Baricco
Cyrano de Bergerac by Stefano Benni
The Nose by Andrea Camilleri
Gulliver by Jonathan Coe
The Betrothed by Umberto Eco
Captain Nemo by Dave Eggers
Gilgamesh by Yiyun Li
King Lear by Melania G. Mazzucco
Antigone by Ali Smith
Crime and Punishment by A. B. Yehoshua