{"product_id":"lears-other-shadow-a-cultural-history-of-queen-lear-9781644533550","title":"Lear's Other Shadow: A Cultural History of Queen Lear","description":"\u003ci\u003eLear's Other Shadow: A Cultural History of Queen Lear\u003c\/i\u003e offers a deep cultural analysis of the figure of Queen Lear, who shadows and eventually sometimes overshadows her royal husband across the nearly one-thousand-year life of this archetypal tale. What appears to be a deliberate strategy of suppression, even erasure in Shakespeare's \u003ci\u003eKing Lear\u003c\/i\u003e later inspired dozens of stage, page, and cinematic remakes and adaptations in which this figure is revived or remembered, often pointedly so. From Jacob Gordin's Yiddish-language \u003ci\u003eMiriele Efros\u003c\/i\u003e (1898), through edgy stage remakes such as Gordon Bottomley's \u003ci\u003eKing Lear's Wife \u003c\/i\u003e(1915) and the Women's Theatre Group's \u003ci\u003eLear's Daughters\u003c\/i\u003e (1987), to novelized retellings from Jane Smiley's \u003ci\u003eA Thousand Acres\u003c\/i\u003e (1991) to Preti Taneja's \u003ci\u003eWe That Are Young \u003c\/i\u003e(2018) and J. R. Thorp's \u003ci\u003eLearwife\u003c\/i\u003e (2021), and even the television series \u003ci\u003eEmpire\u003c\/i\u003e (2015-2020) and \u003ci\u003eSuccession \u003c\/i\u003e(2018-2023), Queen Lear regularly emerges from her shadowy origins to challenge how we understand the ancient King Leir\/King Lear story. These and many other examples reveal fascinating patterns of adaptation and reinterpretation that \u003ci\u003eLear's Other Shadow\u003c\/i\u003e identifies and analyzes for the first time, showing how and why Queen Lear is at the center of this ancient story, whether she is heard from or not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHOMAS G. OLSEN\u003c\/b\u003e is a professor emeritus at the State University of New York, New Paltz, where he taught courses in Shakespeare, early modern English literature, and book history. He is editor of \u003ci\u003eThe Commonplace Book of Sir John Strangways\u003c\/i\u003e (2004) and \u003ci\u003eTales for Shakespeare: Stories That Inspired the Plays\u003c\/i\u003e (2019). His articles and reviews have appeared in \u003ci\u003eSEL\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eProse Studies\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Yale Library Gazette\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eHuntington \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eQuarterly\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eShakespeare Yearbook\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Shakespeare Newsletter\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eReformation\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAnnali d'Italianistica\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Sixteenth Century Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Delaware Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51184878747922,"sku":"9781644533550","price":30.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_a18ebca4-0b1f-4ea6-aa7c-0748c5e2d477.jpg?v=1744581679","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/lears-other-shadow-a-cultural-history-of-queen-lear-9781644533550","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}