The play was first published in 1608. Two quarto editions exist bearing this date, the one with a long, the other with a short, imprint. The former is known to be correctly dated, and to be the first edition—Q I; while the latter is known to be falsely dated, to have been printed in 1619, and to be the second edition—Q 2, a reprint of Q I.

Ever since, in 1885, P. A. Daniel published his introduction to the Praetorius facsimile of Q I, the theory has been widely held that the Lear text given in the 1623 folio (F) was printed from a copy of Q I which had been edited by hand so as to bring it into general accord with an official prompt-book (though the editor on occasion failed to make necessary corrections).

Q I survives in a dozen copies, amongst which there are textual differences. In certain formes, proofcorrection took place after the printing had been begun, and the type was altered before the printing was completed. Uncorrected and corrected sheets were bound up indiscriminately. This proof-correction was erratic. Sometimes the corrector recovered the reading of the copy. Sometimes he left errors unaltered. And sometimes he changed erroneous readings by conjecture rather than in the light of the copy—for example, the original ‘crulentious’ in 3. 4. 6 is obviously a misreading of ‘contentious’ (the F word), and the pressreader's ‘tempestious’ is a conjecture, involving tautology (‘tempestious storme’).