Was Edmund in the Narnia series loosely inspired by Edmund in King Lear? In _King Lear_ , Edmund, resentful of his inferior status to his older brother, betrays his family and frames his brother as a traitor. This strikes me as being quite a bit like what Edmund does in _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_. Is there any evidence of an inspiration, or is the resemblance purely coincidental?

As far as I’ve been able to find, Lewis never spoke explicitly about a connection, but as Rand al'Thor noted, others have made the same connection. David L. Johns offers a full chapter in _Quakering Theology_ making the case that the two Edmunds are connected which is fairly compelling. But without any explicit statement from Lewis, we can never say for certain, even if it is likely that Lewis did make the deliberate choice to name his Edmund after Shakespeare’s.