The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb

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Title: Tales from Shakespeare

Author: Charles and Mary Lamb

Posting Date: October 10, 2008 [EBook #573]
Release Date: June, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE ***

Produced by Tokuya Matsumoto

TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE

by

CHARLES AND MARY LAMB

PREFACE

The following Tales are meant to be submitted to the young reader as an
introduction to the study of Shakespeare, for which purpose his words
are used whenever it seemed possible to bring them in; and in whatever
has been added to give them the regular form of a connected story,
diligent are has been taken to select such words as might least
interrupt the effect of the beautiful English tongue in which he wrote:
therefore, words introduced into our language since his time have been
as far as possible avoided.

In those tales which have been taken from the Tragedies, the young
readers will perceive, when they come to see the source from which
these stories are derived, that Shakespeare's own words, with little
alteration, recur very frequently in the narrative as well as in the
dialogue; but in those made from the Comedies the writers found
themselves scarcely ever able to turn his words into the narrative
form: therefore it is feared that, in them, dialogue has been made use
of too frequently for young people not accustomed to the dramatic form
of writing. But this fault, if it be a fault, has been caused by an
earnest wish to give as much of Shakespeare's own words as possible:
and if the 'He said,' and 'She said,' the question and the reply,
should sometimes seem tedious to their young ears, they must pardon it,
because it was the only way in which could be given to them a few hints
and little foretastes of the great pleasure which awaits them in their
elder years, when they come to the rich treasures from which these
small and valueless coins are extracted; pretending to no other merit
than as faint and imperfect stamps of Shakespeare's matchless image.
Faint and imperfect images they must be called, becaus