TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE




CHARLES AND MARY LAMB





PREFACE


The following Tales are meant to be submitted to the young reader as
an introduction to the study of Shakespeare, for which purpose his
words are used whenever it seemed possible to bring them in; and in
whatever has been added to give them the regular form of a connected
story, diligent are has been taken to select such words as might least
interrupt the effect of the beautiful English tongue in which he wrote:
therefore, words introduced into our language since his time have
been as far as possible avoided.

In those tales which have been taken from the Tragedies, the young
readers will perceive, when they come to see the source from which
these stories are derived, that Shakespeare's own words, with little
alteration, recur very frequently in the narrative as well as in the
dialogue; but in those made from the Comedies the writers found
themselves scarcely ever able to turn his words into the narrative
form: therefore it is feared that, in them, dialogue has been made use