In a canny act of marketing, while they presume that boys will be “permitted the use of their fathers’ libraries at a much earlier age than girls are,” they request boys’ “kind assistance…in explaining to their sisters such parts as are hardest.” They urge them then to select the Shakespearean originals their sisters like most and, “carefully selecting what is proper for a young sister’s ear,” read it aloud. Charles and Mary Lambs classic adaptations of Shakespeares works have made the Bard accessible to millions of children. In their Preface, the Lambs also indicate that their adaptation might be especially useful for girls, whom they assume must wait until they are older to read Shakespeare in the original. The Lambs write that they hope their Tales will stimulate an appetite for Shakespeare in children, which children may gratify more fully as they mature: the Tales offer “little foretastes of the great pleasure which awaits them in their elder years.” Discover Shakespeares best-loved plays These tales are the perfect introduction to Shakespeares greatest. The prose versions are also far shorter than the Shakespearean originals, and the plots and dialogue are therefore stripped down. Their retellings make substantial alterations, however, in framing Shakespeare’s plots with narrative explanation and moral interpretation. The Lambs’ adaptations include many direct quotations from Shakespeare, incorporated into dialogue in the tales or into narrative description.
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