Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare

Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare, written by Edith Nesbit in 1907, turns twenty of the Bard's plays into simple, gentle prose stories for young listeners.

Nesbit takes the plots of famous plays like Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, and The Tempest, along with lesser-known comedies, and tells them the way she might tell a bedtime story, setting aside Shakespeare's verse but keeping the shape of each tale. There are shipwrecked twins finding their way home, jealous kings and quarreling lovers, fairies meddling in a moonlit wood, and quiet plots that come apart inside cold castle walls. Each story stands on its own, so a listener can settle into a single play or drift from one to the next without needing to know what came before.

This is Shakespeare made plain and easy to follow, a classic of children's literature that works just as well for grown listeners who want the stories without the strain of Elizabethan verse. It sits somewhere between fairy tale and classic drama, mixing romance and tragedy with a fair share of mischief along the way. It's a good match for fans of old-fashioned storytelling, classic literature, and anyone who loves Shakespeare's plots but finds the original language hard to follow late at night.

Andrew Bond reads each short tale to soothe rather than stir, one leading quietly into the next. There's a fair chance the play in your ears will end after you've already drifted off.