KING LEAR WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

When: 1810–1820 What: Play Where: England

It’s long been known that performances of King Lear were prohibited in England during the reign of George III, but medical records released in 2018 have actually revealed new details behind the temporary ban. The parallels between the increasingly unstable and delusional Lear and George III are clear enough. Shakespeare’s king is often lost in the imagined scenes of his own mind, striking out at invisible enemies, and the mental health of George III was likewise famously complex and debilitating.

The new twist, however, in these royal records released in 2018 is that one episode of George III’S mental health crisis began after he read the play. The king’s physician, Sir Lucas Pepys, wrote to the then Prince of Wales (later George IV) explaining, “This morning he is in nearly the same state he was in the evening, but is more agitated and confused, perhaps from having been permitted to read King Lear.”