Tales from Shakespeare

Illustration by Arthur Rackham for the 1909 edition of Tales from Shakespeare depicting Bottom and Titania from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Tales from Shakespeare is a classic children's book by the British brother-and sister writers Charles and Mary Lamb. First published in 1807, the book quickly became an influential text. It has been republished many times with different illustrations by various artists and has never been out of print.

The Lambs wrote Tales from Shakespeare to introduce "young people not accustomed to the dramatic form of writing" to the famous plays by William Shakespeare. Selecting twenty popular comedies and tragedies which they considered appropriate for children, they simplified the plots and retold them in narrative form. They omitted any parts deemed inappropriate for young readers but preserved Shakespeare's original wording whenever possible.

Modern readers may find the Lambs' retellings somewhat old-fashioned and didactic. Tales from Shakespeare, however, remains an excellent introduction to Shakespeare.

Stories

illustration from a 1922 edition of Tales from Shakespeare that shows Shakespeare presenting his stories to Queen Elizabeth I and charles and Mary Lamb presenting their stories to children.

The following tales are included in the collection.

• 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 Ends 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
• Othello
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre

See also

Macbeth, illustration by Louis R Rheal from a 1918 edition of Tales from Shakespeare.

Romeo and Juliet, illustration by Louis Rheal from a 1918 edition of tales from Shakespeare.

• Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
• Stories from Shakespeare
• Sound files of public domain audiobook of Tales from Shakespeare from LibriVox:
  • Preface
  • 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 Ends Well
  • The Taming of the Shrew
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Measure for Measure
  • Twelfth Night
  • Timon of Athens
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • Hamlet
  • Othello
  • Pericles

External links

• Versions of Tales from Shakespeare on Wikisource.
• Quotations from and about Tales from Shakespeare on Wikiquote.