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We are fortunate in being able to fix with some precision the date of the composition of King Lear. It was written between 1603 and 1606. Harsnet's Popish Impostures, to which reference is made in our Notes, and which Shakespeare surely used in writing this play, was published in 1603. Edgar, who sings a bit of an old ballad, 'I smell the blood of a British man,' may possibly have substituted 'British' for the more common earlier word, 'English.' King James was crowned in 1603, but he was proclaimed King of Great Britain 24 October, 1604. Furthermore Gloucester mentions 'these late eclipses in the sun and moon.' Now in October, 1605, there was an eclipse of the sun, preceded within the space of a month by an eclipse of the moon. The Stationers' Registers say the play had been performed by 26 December, 1606. Some scholars think it was written in 1604, others in 1605; but all that we can be sure of is that it was written after the beginning of the year 1603 and before the end of the year 1606.

The earliest known edition of King Lear appeared in 1608. Indeed, two separate Quartos bear that date. One of these, at the foot of the title-page, has the following statement: 'Printed for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the Pide Bull neere St. Austins Gate.' It has thus come to be known as the 'Pide Bull' Quarto. The other omits everything after the word 'Butter,' and is now regarded as a spurious edition, really printed about 1619. The next printing of the play was in the First Folio, 1623,