A book on the experience of reading Shakespeare's 'dark plays'. As part of the My Reading series, King Lear is a personal meditation on a great literary work. Arthur W. Frank brings a career of studying illness and suffering to consider how King Lear can aid people whose lives need help. Reading King Lear leads Frank to an encounter with his own old age and provides a source of consolation and companionship. This book does not try to minimize vulnerabilities, but it shows what is fully human, and thus shared, in suffering. The book introduces readers to King Lear and it invites those who know the play to a new consideration for its ability to affect people's lives.

"In the capable hands of Arthur Frank, to read Shakespeare's King Lear turns out to be a matter of care. This is careful reading at its best: attentive, patient and generous. No grand conclusions, but insights that touch the heart and mind. The Shakespearean consolation that the book brings, rings true: not the sugary com fort of false hope, but deep truths of what it means to be human." - Jürgen Pieters, Author of Literature and Consolation

"Combines perceptive psychological insights with their application to the experience of serious illness ... It is difficult for me to encapsulate the wisdom shared in this thoughtful book in a short review. Read it and enrich your practice." - British Journal of General Practice

"Frank takes us slowly and thoughtfully through the whole play, from its calamitous first scenes to its corpse-strewn end-a magical journey that faces horrors but is not cancelled by them. An amazing book." - Michael Wood, Author of Marcel Proust, On Empson, and more