#Re-read

This book is a classic.

The Lambs were meticulous in including Shakespeare's own words whenever probable, and attempted to shun words that were not in use
during the Elizabethan period. Although the authors removed some plot elements for the sake of decency or simplicity, the writing is lively and certainly preserves something of the beauty of Shakespeare's text.

Generations of children have enjoyed the stories as an introduction to the plays, and the book has never been out of print.

Fourteen of the stories from Tales from Shakespeare: Designed for the Use of Young Persons (to give the book its full title), were adapted by Mary Lamb, her brother Charles took on the remaining six tragedies.

When this book was first published in 1807, however, Charles was listed as the solitary author and Mary's name was not included on the cover. It was recognized that Mary suffered from bouts of lunacy.

In 1796 she had murdered their mother—although she was kept from prison and her brother appointed her legal guardian —and this was perchance the reason why her name was obscured until a new edition was published in 1838.

The book contains twenty stories in a prose style that is suitable for children.

The preface states, however, that the book was written mainly for girls because boys tended to have access to the original plays at an earlier age. Boys are asked to elucidate the tricky passages and select appropriate segments from the originals for their sisters to read.

I hadn’t done much of Shakespeare at school and loved this book as an overview for many of his tales that I had no knowledge or know of. It gave me a round up of many of his well beloved plays and stories and now can tell the difference between my ‘Macbeth’s’ and my ‘Midsummer Nights Dreams’ which before picking this up, I couldn’t have done! I always wished I’d learnt Shakespeare in my English classes so sought to make up what I hadn’t learnt and this book was perfect for that.

It was a great introduction to a whole host of Shakespeare’s writings although didn’t include his historical plays (such as Richard lll) but is still a great book for all those who want to brush up on their Shakespeare or like me, to bring yourself up to speed with his plays.

This is a deeply horrible assault on all that is holy and worthwhile. Word. However, since almost anyone can offend a fussy Victorian prig, I delighted in a revisit to that singular Lamb touch, which goes both in and out like a plunging router The idea is that Charles and sometimes Mary Lamb rewrites, in didactic Victorian adorableness, the most gorgeous poetry ever written in English. But they don't stop there. Think Polonious or Pericles, Portia, or Polixines, but no problematic filth. This textual overhaul is nothing if not brave .Lamb clips, snips, renames and omits violently and without regret. Imagine the confidence!. I understand another reviewer's initial frustration with Elizabethan English vocabulary and syntax. But this is surely not her answer. William Shakespeare wrote plays not tales. 36 one with Fletcher. Comedies and tragedies, and if you want to call some of them romances, whatever. He wrote sonnets.
I understand the reviewer who struggled with Elizabethan syntax and diction. Initially frustrating but try this first please: Read
a few times and just wait, don't kid yourself that you aren't clever enough to get him. You are. There's magic if you stick around! I promise! Perhaps more practically, how useful could a plot summary be if it has been altered. W.S. poached most of his plots. Shakespeare seems to use the plots as useful architecture upon which to hand the poetry. We do not continue to read these 36 plays for the plots. We continue to read them for their poetry.. Thus, Charles Lamb's G rated variations of Shakespeare's "tales" convey neither a play's true plot(traffic) nor its poetry. This is very confusing to me. Not an homage to Shakespeare's shocking talent, figurative use of language, manifold layers of meaning, arresting human condition insights ...nope. He likes the plots and the one liners. Lamb seems quite plea to select the good bites, chewt and spit them out for us. Though. Mr. Lamb prefers regurgitating.






shameless moron, enjoying the puns and getting most other things wrong.. didactic leanings could be forgiven if Lamb expressed even a wee bit of shame. So, if you want to read a Victorian prig taking a rake to all that is perfection. read this now! That said, I must confess that the omissions are nevertheless fascinating.....

I have a huge hole in my knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays, and this gives the bare bones of the stories. It’s a fairly dull way to read Shakespeare, bereft of his language and many subplots of his stories, but it’s plain what’s being said. It also unveils how similar in plot many of his plays are, especially those that comprise the ‘comedy’ grouping. Lots of women dressing as men to prove their worth and full of deceitful characters 2.5

Sem comentários, muito bom. Retrata os costumes e histórias da época. Não vale fazer crítica ou avaliação anacrônica, as histórias devem ser entendidas no seu contexto. Cada conto, várias mensagens. Para ler de novo em algum outro momento.

Charles and Mary Lamb's "tales" seem to have a long and reputable history. They were first published in 1807 and have stood the test of time as faithful adaptations of 20 Shakespeare plays. The foreword says that the "motivating force behind this colossal enterprise was a desire to enhance the children's literature of the early 1800s with vital and intricate stories that were at once appetizing and substantial." Regardless of their usefulness as children's stories, they are well-suited as plot summaries for those of all ages.

Tales From Shakespeare is a novel that consists of 20 of Shakespeares classic writtings . From the famous ''Romeo and Juliet'' to the classic'' Merchant of Venice'' and many more of his works. When reading this book I was soon to realize that it was quite easy to understand considering the difficulty of Shakespeare old time writing style. This book makes it easier to understand the works of Shakespeare .I reccommend this book for students or as others recommend it children who are interested in reading Shakespeare plays .I also believe thay this is a great start for
Children to be introduced to the fine arts of literature without being baffled by the difficulties that come along with the actual works.It also is simpler and easier as well as perfect for the begining learners who want
to take part in this type of literature .In my opinion the age range originally set for this book is pretty low and although the content is easier to understand it still isn't proper for really young children. My personal favorite part of this book had to be ''Romeo and Juliet'' . Even though the book is quite long its very interesting to rwad because every chapter is a new exiting story.
the age range oroganlli

Wonderful book to read weather your an adult or child, lovely introduction by Dame Judi Dench too which is a nice touch. Also to add this is a great book if you're just starting to explore Shakespeare and his works as it breaks down the plays in easy to understand plots.

Read this with the girls many years ago but want to reread.

This is actually a totally different book from the original Tales from Shakespeare which I started a couple days ago. I have both books. Read this one in 2002 with daughters. It is illustrated but GRs has it tied to all the other editions written by Charles and Mary Lamb. Not sure how to untie it, so I may have to delete and re-enter the book in order to 'fix' the official record. Grrrr! The dif is the illustrated edition is not complete, only 15 stories (20 in original) and is, well illustrated, as it says in title.

I recalled I’d read summaries of Shakespeare in eighth grade English class, so I determined to find the volume that we’d read. I discovered Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, originally published in 1807, and I’m almost certain that was my eighth grade exposure. It was time to read the volume in full. While I’m glad I rediscovered this classic and it has a place still I'm sure, I’m hesitant to recommend it for children today.

It’s not to say that there isn’t a place for play summaries for children. Obviously, reading summaries of the plays gave me a background for Shakespeare that I recall nearly two decades later. However, the summaries by the Lamb’s are difficult to get through. Most of the text is exposition rather than Shakespeare’s clever dialogue, and let’s face it, clever as they are, Shakespeare’s plots are quite confusing and detailed. For the plays with which I was not familiar, I found it hard to follow the developing stories. For the plays with which I am intimately familiar (Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew), it was rather disappointing to read a surface-level treatment of what I consider genius of plot and language. Besides, much as the authors intended to keep their summaries unbiased, they did give their opinions in subtle ways (such as Mary Lamb’s interpretation of the end of The Taming of the Shrew, a play I think is rather ironic rather than misogynistic).

The Lambs recognized the limitations to their task, and they address the difficulty of adapting Shakespeare's plots for children. The introduction further explains that they intended the summaries to also be for “young ladies” who are not able to be schooled as their brothers may be. The Lambs suggest that boys simply read the original Shakespeare instead of these summaries.

I wonder why, then, anyone who can read the original Shakespeare needs to read Lamb’s summary. As I mentioned, there is a place for it, I suppose, and I may even find myself using the Lambs’ summaries with my son in our homeschooling when the time comes for it. Summaries do provide cultural context for young readers.

And yet, I can’t help but feel that we should try to find a way to expose our kids to the original whenever possible. Shakespeare’s writing, not just his plots, are what make his plays magnificent. The summaries by the Lambs are done as well as can be expected, but they are far less satisfying than the original plays.

I have a long and happy history with this book, and after 20 years of owning it, I’ve finally read it nearly cover-to-cover! A friend gave it to me, somewhat randomly, for my 15th or 16th birthday, and I used it in highschool and college whenever I was about to begin a new play of Shakespeare. After reading the Lambs’ synopsis I always felt well equipped to tackle the original, oriented not just to the plot but also to the very language used in the play itself. By my senior year of highschool, I loved the book so much, I wrote an encomium on the Tales that I submitted to a privately published literary journal.

Fast forward to the time I was researching homeschool curriculum options. I won’t say that featuring Tales from Shakespeare sold us on Ambleside Online, but it definitely swayed us in that direction. What joy, to use a book I loved, but not until an older student, in my children’s first years of schooling! Six plays are assigned per year in first through third grade, so over the past three years I have had the thrill of introducing them to some of my first Shakespearean loves (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth), revisiting several from college (As You Like It, Pericles, A Winter’s Tale), and even becoming acquainted with a few I’d never read (The Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline).

It was a stretching book for all of us—hard to follow for them, hard to read aloud in one sitting for me (we ended up breaking it up into at least two)—but one where the reward was delving into some beloved and glorious stories, couched in beloved and glorious words. It was a mountain climb where I was sometimes pulling them along, huffing and puffing right beside them, but eager to press on for the view—and the future climbs—that lay before us.

And oh, the conversations we had! Despite the difficulties in reading, our discussions were rich and filled my cup to overflowing. The children offered some quirky but penetrating appraisals of character, action, and motive; perhaps unsurprisingly, Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew provoked the most discussion. I feel like this book opened the world of Shakespeare to them as individual readers and to us as a family, allowing us to read and delight together. Shakespeare is now twisted into those cords that bind my mother’s heart to theirs, his plays a cozy, enchanting, mutually beloved topic we will enjoy returning to many times over the years (I hope, actually, into forever).

So now I love Tales from Shakespeare even more than ever I loved it decades ago.

The best part? I’m about to begin the book all over again in the fall with my next batch of students.

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb is a 1001 Children's Book. I've had a copy of it for a long time, and I'd originally planned to read the chapter from this book at the same time I read the play. I did this for two chapters before I realized it might take me an eternity to get through this book if I continued to read at that pace. I decided, instead, to read it during Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon; children's books are usually perfect for a readathon.

Let me say, before I go any further, that this book is easier to read than Shakespeare's plays, but just barely. Here is a sample paragraph, taken from a chapter about a play I not only haven't read, but that I hadn't even heard of before I read this book, Timon of Athens:

"Now was Timon as much avoided in his poverty as he had been courted and resorted to in his riches. Now the same tongues which had been loudest in his praises, extolling him as bountiful, liberal, and open handed, were not ashamed to censure that very bounty as folly, that liberality as profuseness, though it had shown itself folly in nothing so truly as in the selection of such unworthy creatures as themselves for its objects. Now was Timon's princely mansion forsaken, and become a shunned and hated place, a place for men to pass by, not a place, as formerly, where every passenger must stop and taste of his wine and good cheer; now, instead of being thronged with feasting and tumultuous guests, it was beset with impatient and clamorous creditors, usurers, extortioners, fierce and intolerable in their demands, pleading bonds, interest, mortgages; iron-hearted men that would take no denial nor putting off, that Timon's house was now his jail, which he could not pass, nor go in nor out for them; one demanding his due of fifty talents, another bringing in a bill of five thousands crowns, which if he would tell out his blood by drops, and pay them so, he had not enough in his body to discharge, drop by drop."

That's a pretty good sample of this text. It's considered a children's book, remember, and I found the sentences to be lengthy and the vocabulary a bit daunting for modern children.

If you are curious, this book covers 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; Hamlet; Othello; Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

I loved this collection of summaries of the plays, and I may see if I can find More Tales of Shakespeare to read at some future date.