Tales from Shakespeare

Product Description

This retelling in prose of twenty of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays was originally published just for children. Keeping Shakespeare’s own words whenever possible but making the plots and language easily understandable, this very listenable collection has entertained and informed generations of adults as well. With such classic stories as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, Hamlet, and more, Shakespeare’s most memorable characters come to life anew as magicians and fairies, fools and kings weave their magic, mischief, and madness.

The list of 20 plays includes: The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline, King Lear, Macbeth, All’s Well That End Well, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night (or-What You Will), Timon of Athens, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet (Prince of Denmark), Othello, Pericles (Prince of Tyre.)

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up-An introduction to the plots of 20 of Shakespeare’s plays by Charles and Mary Lamb. Narrated by Flo Gibson.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Othello: Iago was artful, and had studied human nature deeply, and he knew that of all the torments which afflict the mind of man (and far beyond bodily torture), the pains of jealousy were the most intolerable, and had the sorest sting. If he could succeed in making Othello jealous of Cassio, he thought it would be an exquisite plot of revenge, and might end in the death of Cassio or Othello, or both: he cared not.

From the Inside Flap

In the twenty tales told in this book, Charles & Mary Lamb succeeded in paraphrasing the language of truly adult literature in children’s terms. Let us not underestimate young readers: they love a complex story with many and varied characters, twists of plot, and turns of fate as much as anyone — but they draw the line at reading in unfamiliar language. The Lambs provide a real feast of plain fare, and flavor it with as many tasty tidbits of Shakespearean language as they felt the young reader could easily digest. This deluxe Children’s Classic edition is produced with high-quality, leatherlike binding with gold stamping, full-color covers, colored endpapers with a book nameplate. Some of the other titles in this series include: Anne of Green Gables, Black Beauty, King Arthur and His Knights, Little Women, and Treasure Island.

About the Author

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616), English poet and dramatist of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period, is the most widely known author in all of English literature, often considered to be the greatest. He was an active member of a theater company for at least twenty years, during which he wrote many great plays. Plays were not prized as literature at the time, and Shakespeare was not widely read until the middle of the eighteenth century, when a great upsurge of interest in his works began which continues today.

Siblings CHARLES AND MARY LAMB were luminaries of early nineteenth-century literary life and key figures in the Romantic movement. Their well-known Tales from Shakespeare, first published in 1807 and never out of print, was written to encourage the poetic impulse in children and prepare them to enjoy the actual plays later in life.

From the Publisher

Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic’s introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all