Dunbar cover art

Dunbar

King Lear Retold (Hogarth Shakespeare)

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Dunbar

By: Edward St. Aubyn
Narrated by: Henry Goodman
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the author of the Patrick Melrose novels, now a major Sky Atlantic television series starring Benedict Cumberbatch

Henry Dunbar, the once all-powerful head of a global media corporation, is not having a good day. In his dotage he handed over care of the corporation to his two eldest daughters, Abby and Megan. But relations quickly soured, leaving him to doubt the wisdom of past decisions.

Now imprisoned in a care home in the Lake District with only a demented alcoholic comedian as company, Dunbar starts planning his escape. As he flees into the hills, his family is hot on his heels. Who will find him first, his beloved youngest daughter, Florence, or the tigresses Abby and Megan, so keen to divest him of his estate?

Public Domain (P)2017 Random House AudioBooks Drama & Plays Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Shakespeare

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Obituary Writer cover art
Delicate Indecencies cover art
Echo of an Angry God cover art
People of Heaven cover art
White Highlands cover art
Cry of the Needle cover art
Village of the Lost Girls cover art
The Woodcutter cover art
The Reluctant Hero cover art
When You Disappeared cover art
Three Days and a Life cover art
Skin and Bones cover art
The Wife Before Me cover art
Master of the Game cover art
Sleep Sister cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Don’t know if I’m missing a final chapter but lots and lots of loose ends to what was a very enjoyable story

No ending?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is one of the weaker attempts at adapting Shakespeare into contemporary fiction. The book works best when it deals directly with Dunbar/Lear and is less interesting dealing with the daughters as they seem to have been given too much coverage here.I am not too sure about the American setting either as I cannot help thinking it only distances the tale rather than further illuminating Shakespeare's text.The lack of Shakespeare's poetic greatness in this particular play is never overcome.A brave attempt never the less.

Good in places.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really rate this author... And the reader is no slouch either. While the Patrick Melrose novels have a cast list of really awful posh people, this is a narrative of really awful rich people with their relationships drawn by analogies with King Lear and his (mostly) dreadful entourage.

Very absorbing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.