100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Auckland Bookstore and Pick Ups open 8:30-5pm Saturday and Sunday 🎉

Dunbar

King Lear, Retold
By Edward St Aubyn
Series: Shakespeare Retold
0.0 (0 reviews)
Brief Description
Shakespeare’s King Lear is reimagined in Edward St Aubyn's gripping story of a media mogul who has lost control. 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... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2800
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Shakespeare’s King Lear is reimagined in Edward St Aubyn's gripping story of a media mogul who has lost control.

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?

‘Malevolently enjoyable… A fable of fatherly neglect and daughterly cruelty’ Financial Times

‘Deeply affecting…and funny’ Observer

SHAKESPEARE RETOLD: Time travel. Zombies. Power-hungry media moguls. This is Shakespeare as you’ve never seen him before: nine iconic plays transformed by the best novelists of our time, with covers by Michael Craig-Martin.

Series: Shakespeare Retold

View all
  • The Porpoise
    SHAKESPEARE RETOLD- Nine iconic plays transformed by the best novelists of our time, with covers by Michael Craig-Martin. Shakespeare's Pericles is transformed by Mark Haddon into a vivid, breathtaking adventure that zooms between antiquity and the present day. A motherless girl grows up in isolated luxury, hidden from the world by her wealthy father. She believes their life together is...
    By Mark Haddon
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Warm Bodies
    SHAKESPEARE RETOLD- Nine iconic plays transformed by the best novelists of our time, with covers by Michael Craig-Martin. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is completely reimagined in this unforgettable zombie love story. 'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories, and no pulse, but he has dreams. Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her...
    By Isaac Marion
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Dunbar
    Dunbar
    Shakespeare’s King Lear is reimagined in Edward St Aubyn's gripping story of a media mogul who has lost control. 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...
    By Edward St Aubyn
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Hag-Seed
    Hag-Seed
    Shakespeare’s The Tempest gets the Margaret Atwood treatment in this ingenious, funny, tear-jerking story about a theatre director intent on revenge. Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he’s staging a Tempest like no other. It will boost his reputation. It will heal emotional...
    By Margaret Atwood
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Macbeth
    Macbeth
    Shakespeare’s Macbeth is transformed into a page-turning Jo Nesbo crime thriller, the story of the ex-addict cop Inspector Macbeth. He's the best cop they've got. When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath, it's up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess. He's also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past. He's rewarded for his success....
    By Jo Nesbo
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • New Boy
    New Boy
    Shakespeare's Othello is ingeniously transplanted into a high school setting in this taut story about teenage friendship and racial tension. Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat’s son Osei knows he needs an ally. Luckily he hits it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can’t stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian...
    By Tracy Chevalier
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Shylock is My Name
    Shylock is My Name
    Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is brilliantly reinvented by Howard Jacobson, in his merciless, sharp and funny story of revenge, justice and antisemitism. With an absent wife and a daughter going off the rails, wealthy art collector and philanthropist Simon Strulovitch is in need of someone to talk to. So when he meets Shylock at a cemetery in Cheshire’s Golden...
    By Howard Jacobson
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Gap of Time
    The Gap of Time
    Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is revolutionised by the iconic Jeanette Winterson in her page-turning, heart-breaking story of a baby girl banished from home. A baby girl is abandoned, banished from London to the storm-ravaged American city of New Bohemia. Her father has been driven mad by jealousy, her mother to exile by grief. Seventeen years later, Perdita doesn't know a...
    By Jeanette Winterson
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Vinegar Girl
    Vinegar Girl
    Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is hilariously reimagined by one of our greatest living novelists, in this very funny, heartbreaking story of one woman, two men and unconventional happy endings. Kate Battista is stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and infuriating younger sister Bunny? Dr Battista has other problems. His...
    By Anne Tyler
    Paperback
    $2800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781784878818

Publisher: Vintage Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 05 March 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Vintage Classics

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 16.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 166g

Pages: 224

Collections

Classic Fiction Edward St Aubyn Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Penguin Books Series: Shakespeare Retold

About the Author

Edward St Aubyn was born in London. His superbly acclaimed Patrick Melrose novels are Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk (winner of the Prix Femina etranger and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize), and At Last. The series was made into a BAFTA-award winning Sky Atlantic TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. St Aubyn is also the author of A Clue to the Exit, On the Edge (shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize), Lost for Words (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), and Dunbar, his re-imagining of King Lear for Hogarth Shakespeare.

Also by Edward St Aubyn

View all
  • At Last
    At Last is a miraculously wrought piece of art’ Suzi Feay, Financial Times ‘A terrifying, spectacularly entertaining saga’ James Lasdun, The Guardian At Last is the fifth instalment in Edward St Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical series, The Patrick Melrose novels. As friends, relatives and foes trickle in to pay their final respects to his mother Eleanor, Patrick Melrose finds himself questioning whether...
    By Edward St Aubyn
    Paperback
    $2500
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Mother's Milk
    Mother's Milk was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the South Bank Literature Award. "So good - so fantastically well-written, profound and humane... it is heart-stopping" - Observer The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril. Caught up in the wreckage of broken promises, child-rearing, adultery, and assisted suicide, Patrick finds his wife Mary consumed by motherhood,...
    By Edward St Aubyn
    Paperback
    $2999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Some Hope
    "Our purest living prose stylist." - The Guardian "Tantalizing . . . A memorable tour de force." - The New York Times Book Review Some Hope is the third in Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series, The Patrick Melrose novels. Patrick Melrose, cleaned-up and world-weary, is a reluctant guest at a glittering party deep in the English countryside. Amid a crowd...
    By Edward St Aubyn
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Parallel Lines
    Pre-order
    Parallel Lines
    A brother and sister lost and found, in a novel that seizes your heart and enthrals your mind, from the author of the Patrick Melrose series. Perhaps the most brilliant English novelist of his generation - Alan Hollinghurst “We set off in opposite directions and walked around the world until we met, and I'm very pleased we have...” Sebastian is...
    By Edward St Aubyn
    Paperback
    $2800
    Pre-order
    Out 25 Aug 2026
  • Parallel Lines
    A brother and sister lost and found, in a novel that seizes your heart and enthrals your mind, from the author of the Patrick Melrose series. 'We set off in opposite directions and walked around the world until we met, and I'm very pleased we have...' It is summer. Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown that has left him...
    By Edward St Aubyn
    Paperback
    Sold Out

More from General Fiction

View all
  • The Wedding People
    'BEST READ OF THE YEAR SO FAR' THE TIMES 'BOOKS AS FUN AS THIS ONE ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN' GUARDIAN Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel in Rhode Island wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mistaken for one of the wedding people — but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall...
    By Alison Espach
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Throne of Glass Box Set (Paperback)
    Enter the realm. Unleash the darkness. Live the legend. Discover the worldwide phenomenon of the #1 New York Times-bestselling Throne of Glass series in this gorgeous 8-book box set! In a land without magic, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She has no love for the vicious king who rules from his throne of glass, but she has not...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Set
    $12400
    Elsewhere:
    $15500
    (6)
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • The Goal
    Welcome to Briar U!Get ready for your newest obsession . . . Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy!Read The Goal now for the perfect forced proximity romance! She's good at achieving her goals . . . College senior Sabrina James has her whole future planned out: graduate from college, kick...
    By Elle Kennedy
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Red Rising
    The first book in the incredible New York Times bestselling series Darrow is a Helldiver, toiling beneath the surface of Mars. As a member of the Red caste, he performs grueling labor in the belief that his sacrifice will enable future generations to one day inhabit the surface of the Red Planet. The Reds are humankind's lowest caste, living in...
    By Pierce Brown
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • New Release
    The Ballad of Falling Dragons [Special Deluxe edition]
    The No.1 Sunday Times bestselling sensation When the Moon Hatched continues with the second book in The Moonfall Series, The Ballad of Falling Dragons… Raeve’s thirst for vengeance continues to burn, as does her love for Kaan Vaegor – a staunch beacon from a past she’s yet to face. With Rekk’s blood still fresh on her hands, she learns the...
    By Sarah A. Parker
    Hardback
    $5999
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • The Score
    Welcome to Briar U! Get ready for your newest obsession... Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy! Read The Score now for the perfect friends with benefits romance! He knows how to score, on and off the ice... Allie Hayes is in crisis mode. With graduation looming, she still doesn't have...
    By Elle Kennedy
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Carl's Doomsday Scenario
    Join Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat Princess Donut as they fight fantastical creatures and deadly mobs in the second book in the smash-hit Dungeon Crawler Carl series -now with bonus material exclusive to the print edition Now on the third floor, Carl and Donut have to fight harder than ever. They've already proven that a Coast Guard vet and once-and-forever...
    By Matt Dinniman
    Hardback
    $4699
    Elsewhere:
    $6000
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Golden Son
    ENDER'S GAME meets THE HUNGER GAMES in this, the second in an extraordinary trilogy from an incredible new voice.'I'm still playing games. This is just the deadliest yet.' Darrow is a rebel forged by tragedy. For years he and his fellow Reds worked the mines, toiling to make the surface of Mars inhabitable. They were, they believed, mankind's last hope....
    By Pierce Brown
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Dylan's Pick Dylan's Pick
    Theo of Golden
    THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING PHENOMENON'For anything to be truly good, there must be love in it. Nothing is what it's supposed to be if love is not at the core.' One morning, a stranger arrives in the town of Golden. No one knows who he is or where he came from…His name is Theo and he's arrived there by chance –...
    By Allen Levi
    Paperback
    $2899
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    (5)
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Buy to Win
    East of Eden
    Set against the backdrop of the fertile Salinas Valley in California, East of Eden is a profound and compelling novel by John Steinbeck, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. This masterful narrative charts the intertwining destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—across multiple generations. Steinbeck's intricate portrayal of human nature and enduring exploration of moral themes...
    By John Steinbeck
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • New Release
    On Mystic Lake
    One of the greatest storytellers of our time - Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing Annie Colwater's only child has just left home for school in England. On that same day, her husband of twenty years confesses that he's in love with a younger woman. Left alone in the beautiful California house which was once a home, Annie...
    By Kristin Hannah
    Paperback
    $3100
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Project Hail Mary
    Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, the SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of The Martian, offers a gripping new adventure in hard science fiction. With endorsement from notable figures such as Barack Obama and a slew of five-star reviews, this novel promises a thrilling and intellectually stimulating journey. Ryland Grace, a lone astronaut, finds himself on a...
    By Andy Weir
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    (4)
    In Stock
    Ships Monday

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.

General Fiction lists from the team

Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!

The Latest at Book Hero

View all