Books with title Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

The first volume of David Timson's series retelling of the stories from Shakespeare's plays was widely praised by newspaper and educators alike. Here is volume 2, with more key plays. Including Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry IV, all texts which regularly appear on the exam syllabus. As before, the stories are illustrated by numerous examples from the plays themselves. They are read by two leading Shakespearean actors, Juliet Stevenson and Alex Jennings.

During her prolific career, popular English children’s writer Edith Nesbit wrote or collaborated on over sixty books of fiction for children in her illustrious literary career. In “Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare” first published as “The Children's Shakespeare” in 1897, she turns her attention to a series of interpretations of several of William Shakespeare’s best-known comedies and dramas. These retellings of many of Shakespeare’s plays are written in a way that can be easily understood by and entertaining to young readers. Rather than being unintelligible and strange to young, modern audiences, Nesbit uses her prodigious storytelling skills to make these iconic stories relatable and interesting. “Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare” includes a short biography of Shakespeare, a list of famous quotations, and the retellings of these famous plays. Included are such classics as “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “The Tempest”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Hamlet”, “Macbeth”, “The Merchant of Venice”, and many more. This accessible and engaging introduction to some of the world’s greatest literature is an important addition to any young reader’s growing book collection. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

The writings of Shakespeare have been justly termed "the richest, the purest, the fairest, that genius uninspired ever penned."Shakespeare instructed by delighting. His plays alone (leaving mere science out of the question), contain more actual wisdom than the whole body of English learning. He is the teacher of all good-- pity, generosity, true courage, love. His bright wit is cut out "into little stars." His solid masses of knowledge are meted out in morsels and proverbs, and thus distributed, there is scarcely a corner of the English-speaking world to-day which he does not illuminate, or a cottage which he does not enrich. His bounty is like the sea, which, though often unacknowledged, is everywhere felt. As his friend, Ben Jonson, wrote of him, "He was not of an age but for all time." He ever kept the highroad of human life whereon all travel. He did not pick out by-paths of feeling and sentiment. In his creations we have no moral highwaymen, sentimental thieves, interesting villains, and amiable, elegant adventuresses--no delicate entanglements of situation, in which the grossest images are presented to the mind disguised under the superficial attraction of style and sentiment. He flattered no bad passion, disguised no vice in the garb of virtue, trifled with no just and generous principle. While causing us to laugh at folly, and shudder at crime, he still preserves our love for our fellow-beings, and our reverence for ourselves.Shakespeare was familiar with all beautiful forms and images, with all that is sweet or majestic in the simple aspects of nature, of that indestructible love of flowers and fragrance, and dews, and clear waters--and soft airs and sounds, and bright skies and woodland solitudes, and moon-light bowers, which are the material elements of poetry,--and with that fine sense of their indefinable relation to mental emotion, which is its essence and vivifying soul--and which, in the midst of his most busy and tragical scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks and ruins--contrasting with all that is rugged or repulsive, and reminding us of the existence of purer and brighter elements.These things considered, what wonder is it that the works of Shakespeare, next to the Bible, are the most highly esteemed of all the classics of English literature. "So extensively have the characters of Shakespeare been drawn upon by artists, poets, and writers of fiction," says an American author,--"So interwoven are these characters in the great body of English literature, that to be ignorant of the plot of these dramas is often a cause of embarrassment."But Shakespeare wrote for grown-up people, for men and women, and in words that little folks cannot understand.Hence this volume. To reproduce the entertaining stories contained in the plays of Shakespeare, in a form so simple that children can understand and enjoy them, was the object had in view by the author of these Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare.And that the youngest readers may not stumble in pronouncing any unfamiliar names to be met with in the stories, the editor has prepared and included in the volume a Pronouncing Vocabulary of Difficult Names. To which is added a collection of Shakespearean Quotations, classified in alphabetical order, illustrative of the wisdom and genius of the world's greatest dramatist.

In Stories from Shakespeare, Marchette Chute opens wide the gateway to the most varied and glorious world ever created by one man. Her retellings of all thirty-six First Folio plays are superbly lucid. It is not Ms. Chute's purpose to provide a substitute for these immortal comedies, tragedies, and histories; rather she seeks to provide the modern reader with essential insight into Shakespeare's narrative genius, clarifying the intricacies of plot and sharply delineating a host of characters, major and minor alike. This she does with surpassing grace and unobtrusive scholarship, closely following the sequence of onstage action and illuminating it with choice quotations and perceptive comments. The New Yorker has termed this work "a beautifully done job."

During her career popular children's writer Edith Nesbit collaborated on over sixty books of fiction for children. In "Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare" she turns her attention to a series of interpretations of William Shakespeare's works. These retellings of Shakespeare's plays are written in a way that can be easily understood by and entertaining to young readers. "Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare" includes a short biography of Shakespeare, a pronunciation guide, a list of famous quotations, and retellings of the following plays: "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Tempest," "As You Like It," "The Winter's Tale," "King Lear," "Twelfth Night," "Much Ado About Nothing," "Romeo and Juliet," "Pericles," "Hamlet," "Cymbeline," "Macbeth," "The Comedy of Errors," "The Merchant of Venice," "Timon of Athens," "Othello," "The Taming of the Shrew," "Measure for Measure," "Two Gentlemen of Verona," and "All's Well That Ends Well."

This is a lovely 19th century retelling of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays crafted to be told in the common tongue and geared toward the minds of children. While many of Shakespear’s plays include tragedy, death and deceit, the author includes the whole tale both good and bad, dark and light and educates children of some of the most fantastic lines in history. Includes a number of illustrations.To gain inspiration in the famous words of Shakespeare, the author also includes quotes and how they affect specific aspects of human existence. Nesbit is most widely known for her works in the development of children’s literature and has spawned the dawn of what we now know as Childrens Books. Biography included.

A 1907 fiction compilation by E. Nesbit with the purpose of amusing little children and narrating Shakespeare's theatricals in a style they can clearly decipher. She encompassed a short life account of William Shakespeare, a verbalized reference to many of the hard-to-pronounce sobriquets and some magnificent aphorisms. These Beautiful Stories of Shakespeare consists of: A Midsummer Night's Dream; The Tempest; As You Like It; The Winter's Tale; King Lear; Twelfth Night; Much Ado About Nothing; Romeo and Juliet; Pericles; Hamlet; Cymbeline; Macbeth; The Comedy of Errors; The Merchant of Venice; Timon of Athens; Othello; The Taming of the Shrew; Measure for Measure; Two Gentlemen of Verona; and All's Well That Ends Well. In the baptismal records of the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, a marketplace in Warwickshire, England, stated, that on April 26, 1564 is the date of baptism of William Shakespeare to his father John Shakspeare. The baptism is recorded in Latin —"Gulielmus filius Johannis Shakspeare." His date of birth has taken place 3 days prior to his baptismal, however, this is yet to be proven. The last name was differently spelled, the playwright himself not often spelled it as stated in his records. The record implies that his last name is spelled as Shakspeare, in many original signatures of the playwright it is spelled as Shakspere, and in the first publication of his books it is written as Shakespeare. Halliwell said that there are not more than 34 ways in which the diverse members of the family of Shakespeare ascribe the appellation, and in the council-book of the corporation of Stratford, where it is presented 166 times through those times when the playwright’s father was municipal official, there are 14 distinct spellings. The contemporary Shakespeare is not listed.

"It may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence. He has been imitated by all succeeding writers; and it may be doubted whether from all his successors more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence can be collected than he alone has given to his country."--Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.