Audiobook · read by volunteers
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
E. Nesbit (1858–1924)
Read by Laura Caldwell, Stuart Bell, Elizabeth Klett, Charlene V. Smith, Sibella Denton, Geoff Cowgill, Ransom, Denny Sayers (d. 2015), Nathalie J., JemmaBlythe · 21 chapters · 5 h 02
About the book
Edith Nesbit, the author of The Railway Children, believed that young readers should meet Shakespeare early and with delight. In this collection she retells twenty plays in simple, flowing prose: tales of enchantment such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest, stories of love and mistaken identity, and darker tragedies of ambition, jealousy and revenge, from Hamlet and Macbeth to King Lear and Othello. She keeps the main events and many of the best-loved moments, but trims the language so that children can follow it without a struggle. The book begins with a short life of Shakespeare. Twenty-one parts, shared among ten LibriVox volunteers, make up about five hours of listening. It is a lovely way for families to approach the plays, and a handy refresher for adults who want the stories again.
Introduction
Edith Nesbit, who lived from 1858 to 1924, was an English author best known for her children’s books, which include The Railway Children and The Story of the Treasure Seekers. In 1907 she published Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare, a retelling of the plays for children.
The book follows in the footsteps of Charles and Mary Lamb’s earlier Tales from Shakespeare, but Nesbit wrote in her own voice and with a particular concern for the young listener. Her conviction was that children could take real pleasure in Shakespeare if the stories reached them in language they understood, and she kept as much as she could of the spirit of the originals. Her chapters open with a preface and a short life of the dramatist, and then move through the plays one by one. They include comedies such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew, romances such as The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale, and tragedies such as King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello.
The collection is classed as children’s fiction and short works. It makes no claim to replace the plays themselves, which depend on poetry and performance. Instead it offers a first meeting with the plots and characters, and many readers have found that it prepares the way for later enjoyment of the full texts.
The recording has twenty-one parts, shared among ten LibriVox volunteers, and lasts about five hours. Today it is worth hearing for the quality of Nesbit’s storytelling, for its usefulness as an introduction to Shakespeare and for the pleasure of hearing familiar stories told with warmth and clarity.
Public domain
E. Nesbit died in 1924: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text