Charles and Mary Lamb
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) and his sister Mary (1764–1847) are famous for their Tales from Shakespeare, prose retellings of twenty of Shakespeare’s plays. They wrote other books for children and adults but are best remembered for this work, which was published in 1807. Tales from Shakespeare is said to be one of only two books for children that have remained continuously in print since the 1800’s—the other being The Swiss Family Robinson, by J.D. Wyss.
Charles and Mary were born in England. Neither of them ever married, and the two lived together for most of their lives. They had several notable friends, including the great poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Further Reading
The Lambs’ Preface to Tales from Shakespeare.
An Introduction to the Tales by Rev. Alfred Ainger.
The full text (HTML) of the Tales, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
The following stories are included in Tales from Shakespeare:
The Tempest
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Winter’s Tale
Much Ado About Nothing
As You Like It
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Merchant of Venice
Cymbeline
King Lear
Macbeth
All’s Well that Ends Well
The Taming of the Shrew
The Comedy of Errors
Measure for Measure
Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
Timon of Athens
Romeo and Juliet
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Othello
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
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