Such a slender little volume and how apparently unimportant. After all, if one reads seriously, why a collection of retold versions of the bard aimed at school children. Ah, but they are witty and to the point and entirely delightful.
Recently I have been reading something that extolled the virtues of Charles Lamb, so I have been feeling the need to fill in the gaps in my education caused by a far too liberal education. And I have been intrigued by the stories of Mary Lamb, who was a sad and sorry case. This little edition seemed a likely introduction.
Ah, well, with the strongly worded warning that the retelling of the Merchant of Venice is distasteful to be kind, may I say that this is a blithe book. I want to buy it for any student who is slogging through class readings without the guide of an inspired teacher. Heck, I want to buy it for all sorts of people who don't get Shakespeare. The two authors quote a smattering of stirring speeches, carefully chosen and in enough quantity to whet and not slake a taste for dialogue.
Most of the big plays, the tragedies are the sphere of Charles Lamb, while the comedies belong to his sister. She has a wry wit that flutters happily through Puck, Benedick, Rosalind and she pitches her tone to be as a confident to the reader.
On another point,I really like the cover and want to see more Sadowski. ( )

In my opinion, Lamb's adaptations are truly masterful. They use small excerpts from Shakespeare, retain some of the feeling of Shakespeare, pare away sub-plots and characters, and sanitize some situations (e.g., the incest in Pericles), to make relatively simple, cohesive stories appropriate for children. As far as I know, no one else has successfully done this.

On the other hand, the joy of Shakespeare is in his language and character development, most of which is lost in Lamb. Some of the omitted characters are delightful favorites in the actual plays, and while they are non-essential in terms of the main story, they are part of what makes Shakespeare so wonderful. Although Shakepeare's stories are interesting, they are (mostly, at least) not original to him; it is his treatment of them that makes them so great.

I enjoyed reading Lamb, partly because of my interest in how writers adapt other works for their own purposes, and partly just as a reminder of which comedy is which (although I remember the stories, for some reason I have trouble putting the title to many of them, unless I have read/seen them recently).

I originally read this in my grandmother's edition (hence the 1915 date), and reviewed again about five years ago. The second reading was a little disappointing, but tempered by the fact that I had to account for the period in which the book was published. ( )

Yes, as many will point out, these are excellent introductions to the works of Shakespeare for young readers or older readers who never got around to reading his complete works (here the reviewer raises her hand).

What I really liked about them, though, was the way they allowed me to enjoy the stories as I would a collection of fairy tales. When you avoid the tendency to focus on Shakespeare's language these tales of kings, queens, princesses and mythical creatures are just as good as settling in with a collection of Grimm or Anderson. ( )

Date unknown
Belonged to Albert John Wenzlaff, grandfather to Marty Magee