Edith Nesbit
Edwardian wishes, tame dragons, and Shakespeare retold gently.
Edith Nesbit wrote for Edwardian children who were read to at night, and the construction shows. Her adventures run one to a chapter and close before the candle goes out, which makes her an easy author to fall asleep inside.
Five Children and It is the clearest case. The sand-fairy grants one wish per day, each wish goes wrong by teatime, and everything resets at sunset, so wherever sleep interrupts, tomorrow starts clean. Andrew Bond reads it on Send Me To Sleep. The Book of Dragons works the same way with dragons instead of wishes: standalone tales from 1899 in which children outwit the beasts rather than fight them. It appears on The Sleepy Bookshelf and Send Me To Sleep alike.
Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare is the surprise of the set. Nesbit turns twenty plays into simple prose, so the plots arrive half-remembered from school, with the difficulty sanded off. Falling asleep during Hamlet, for once, costs nothing.
