In 1807 Charles Lamb and his sister Mary Lamb were asked by their good friend, William Godwin, to Write the stories from the best known of shakespeare's plays in a form that children could easily understand. The stories were intended as an introduction toShakespeare for readers who were too young to read the plays themselves, and not as a replacement. It was suggested that girls in particular, who would not in those days be able to use libraries as freely as their brothers, would profit from them. The result was Tales from Shakespeare. 'I think it will be popular among the little people,' Charles wrote to a friend at the time. And he was right: the stories succeeded beyond expectation, enjoying popularity (with people of all sizes!) until the present day.
At the beginning of the nineteenth sentury the moral take was an inportant form of literature for children; stories were used mainly to teach children the difference between right and wrong, This affected the way the Lambs wrote the stories: the characters are shown as either good or bad in a way that is not obviousin the plays, and the moral at the end of each story is very clear. The Tales attempt, wherever possible, to use Shakespeare's own words to retell the stories, but the language is made easier for the young reader. Some of the stories have also been made less complicated, with fewer characters than the original.
For the Lambs, whose lives until this point had not been at all easy, the Tales were their first success in the world of literature. Charles was born in 1775, nine years after Mary Ann. Their father was a poorly paid lawyers vlerk in London. Charleswas sent to the well-known Christ's Hospital School, But Mary, as a girl, did not have the opportunity for such a good education as her brother.
For most of his life, Charles worked as a clerk at East India House, While writing in his free time. His work was not well paid, and even though Mary earned a little money from needlework, the family was poor. Mary gradually became mentally unbalanced, and then a terrible event took place that changed the brother's and sister's lives for ever. In 1796 their mother tried to stop a fight between Mary and another girl. The fight ended when Mary killed her mother with a knide. At the court case that followed, Mary was judged to be mentally ill and was sent to a mental home. But Charles managed to persuade the courts to let him take responsibilty for looking after her, and she was allowed to return home after three years. Charles spent the rest of his life caring for her, and never married. Because she was known to have murdered her mother and to have been in a mental home, the pair had to remove house several times. But on the whole they led a calm and happy life together and brought uup a child called Emma Isola, who had no parents, as their daughter. Charles died in 1934 and Mary 13 years later.
Charles was a friend of many famous figures of his time, such as the poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He was a respected and orginal judge of literature who also wrote poems, plays and stories. With Mary, he wrote several books for children: they retold the story of the Odyssey in The Adverntures of Ulysses (1808): Mrs Leicester's school (1809) and Poetry for children (1809) followed.
William Shakespeare, whose plays are retold here in story form, is famous around the world for both his poems and his plays, but very few solid facts are known about his life. He was born in 1564 in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, to the trader John Shakespeare and his wife Mary Arden. He probably went to Stratford Grammer School, which offered free education to local boys. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, and they had three children, Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. In 1592 Shakespeare was known to be in London, acting and writing plays, but he may have worked as choolmaster before this.
Shakespeare became an important member of a theatre company, which performed at two London theatres, the Globe and the blackfriars. His play were given a special performances at the courts of Queen Elizabeth 1 and King James 1 and his success made him a wealthy man. We knoq that he bought New Place, a large and impressive house in Stratford, for his family. He rebuilt the house, moved his wife and daughters there (his son has died in 1596), and spent his later years there himself when he left London Shakespeare died in 1616 and was buried in church in Stratford.
The stories in this collection are taken from plays written at different times in Shakespeare's proffessional life. The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy of a character, and one of the first plays that Shakespeare wrote. The Winter's Tale was almost his last play. It is called a comedy because the ending is happy, but the characters go through much pain and sorrow before that ending is reached. Thesetwo stories were written by Mary Lamb. The other stories were written by Charles, and are examples of Shakespeare's finest tragedies. Romeo and Juliet is an early play showing how the joys of young love are destroyed by the hatred of others. Hamlet, a terrible tale of revenge, is probably Shakespeare's most famous play. It is jealousy that leads to tragedy in Othello, while king Lear shows the shocking effects of an old man's bad judgement. This book introduces the reader to some of the most famous characters from Shakespeare's most powerful plays.
