Other editions of book Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare: By E. Nesbit & William Shakespeare - Illustrated

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - 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.

Stories from the works of Shakespeare, adapted by English author and poet E. Nesbit for children. Contents: Preface; A brief life of Shakespeare; 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 of measure; Two gentlemen of Verona; All's well that ends well; Pronouncing vocabulary of names; Quotations from Shakespeare.

Hermia and Lysander were lovers; but Hermia's father wished her to marry another man, named Demetrius. Now, in Athens, where they lived, there was a wicked law, by which any girl who refused to marry according to her father's wishes, might be put to death. Hermia's father was so angry with her for refusing to do as he wished, that he actually brought her before the Duke of Athens to ask that she might be killed, if she still refused to obey him. The Duke gave her four days to think about it, and, at the end of that time, if she still refused to marry Demetrius, she would have to die. Lysander of course was nearly mad with grief, and the best thing to do seemed to him for Hermia to run away to his aunt's house at a place beyond the reach of that cruel law; and there he would come to her and marry her. But before she started, she told her friend, Helena, what she was going to do.

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."(less)

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare A BRIEF LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE. In the register of baptisms of the parish church of Stratford-upon-Avon, a market town in Warwickshire, England, appears, under date of April 26, 1564, the entry of the baptism of William, the son of John Shakspeare. The entry is in Latin--“Gulielmus filius Johannis Shakspeare.” The date of William Shakespeare's birth has usually been taken as three days before his baptism, but there is certainly no evidence of this fact. The family name was variously spelled, the dramatist himself not always spelling it in the same way. While in the baptismal record the name is spelled “Shakspeare,” in several authentic autographs of the dramatist it reads “Shakspere,” and in the first edition of his works it is printed “Shakespeare.” Halliwell tells us, that there are not less than thirty-four ways in which the various members of the Shakespeare family wrote the name, and in the council-book of the corporation of Stratford, where it is introduced one hundred and sixty-six times during the period that the dramatist's father was a member of the municipal body, there are fourteen different spellings. The modern “Shakespeare” is not among them. Shakespeare's father, while an alderman at Stratford, appears to have been unable to write his name, but as at that time nine men out of ten were content to make their mark for a signature, the fact is not specially to his discredit. The traditions and other sources of information about the occupation of Shakespeare's father differ. He is described as a butcher, a woolstapler, and a glover, and it is not impossible that he may have been all of these simultaneously or at different times, or that if h

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."(less)