“Palfrey's deep dive into the character and meaning of Poor Tom, the disguise Edgar adopts for most of the play, leads to some astonishing revelations ranging from staging choices to linguistic connections across characters and scenes. . . . Anyone who teaches, directs, acts, or writes about King Lear will find reading [Poor Tom] well worth their time. . . . Recommended.”

Choice

“A brilliant example of characterological study. . . . There is no better, more insightful book on Shakespeare this year.”

Studies in English Literature 1500–1900

“Palfrey is as dazzling a close reader as he is a prose stylist, and these two gifts often complement each other to produce elegant, economical, revelatory interpretations. . . . Poor Tom . . . has given me a provocative way of thinking about Lear, and an exciting, challenging model for reading it.”
 

Renaissance and Reformation

“At the heart of this book’s intense and at times intensely personal consideration of the Edgar/Tom part in King Lear is a series of top-notch close readings of the lines Shakespeare assigns to this character. These readings do more than any effort recent or long past to come to terms with this extraordinary figure.”
 

Renaissance Quarterly

“A nuanced close reading, an exploration of Lear’s sometimes ambiguous relationship to its sources and biblical parallels, and a provocative discussion of theatrical possibility. [Poor Tom] should be of interest to scholars and to all actors and directors who have grappled with that deceptively simple question—‘Why this disguise?’”
 

Sixteenth Century Journal

“Nearly every page of Poor Tom contains some arresting insight; even readers who think they know Lear inside out are likely to be surprised by how much they have missed. . . . This is a generous and forgiving book, too: witty, lucid, and unstuffy, its sharp scrutiny touched with compassion. It will bear reading and rereading.”

Shakespeare Quarterly

“As well as championing the one-play Shakespeare monograph, the book offers an understanding and feeling reading of King Lear that, at heart, challenges the status quo of much Shakespeare criticism.”

Year’s Work in English Studies

"For all the play’s transformations under the hands of critics over the years, it remains one of the most enigmatic, moving, and radical works ever written in English, by Shakespeare or by any other playwright. Those who wish to travel into the terrifying world that it discloses will need a guide, and Palfrey’s book is the one to lead them there."

Common Knowledge

"Reading Poor Tom has the effect of watching a familiar landscape expand and morph in myriad, telling ways, opening up ever deeper reserves of strangeness in the much-discussed and much-estranged play of King Lear. This is a very rare sort of work."

Kenneth Gross, author of Shylock Is Shakespeare and Puppet

“Palfrey is one of the most innovative and interesting Shakespeare scholars of his generation. Poor Tom is powerfully written, with a strong voice and poetic style that is ceaselessly illuminating.”

Julia Reinhard Lupton, author of Thinking with Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life

“By putting us in touch with Poor Tom, a near nullity, this book draws us irresistibly into the surcharged plenum of King Lear. Palfrey’s critical gifts and skills are exquisite, but perhaps more singular still is his openness to the playworld’s life-making possibilities. His is a practice of vitalization, animating even the most inert recesses of the tragedy, and so compellingly that we might well wonder why we missed so much before.”

Margreta de Grazia, University of Pennsylvania