Tales from Shakespeare

First published in 1807, this book retells twenty of Shakespeare's plays as prose stories for young readers. Charles Lamb writes the tragedies and some histories; Mary Lamb writes the comedies. Each chapter follows one play's main action and named figures, stripping verse and much of the subplot so the plot can be read as a tale. Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and others appear in this simplified narrative form. The Lambs keep the outline of each drama rather than inventing new endings. The book is a set of narrative condensations, not the plays themselves and not a critical study.

Bound in grey-green buckram printed with a design. Dark green slipcase.