Charles a n d m a r y lamb
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More Tales From Shakespeare CHARLES A N D M A R Y LAMB • Level 5 Retold by G. Horsley Series Editors: Andy Hopkins and Jocelyn Potter
Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE, England
ISBN 0 582 41934 4 First published in the Longman Simplified English Series 1956 First published in the Longman Fiction Series 1993 This adaptation first published 1996 Third impression 1997 This edition first published 1999 N E W E D I T I O N
This edition copyright © Penguin Books Ltd 1999 Cover design by Bender Richardson White Set in 11/14pt Bembo Printed in Spain by Mateu Cromo, S.A.Pinto (Madrid)
Published by Pearson Education Limited in association w i t h Penguin Books Ltd, both companies being subsidiaries of Pearson Plc For a complete list of titles available in the Penguin Readers series please write to your local Pearson Education office or contact: Penguin Readers Marketing Department, Pearson Education, Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex, C M 2 0 2JE. Contents page Introduction v The Winter's Tale 1 K i n g Lear 1 3 The Taming of the Shrew 2 5 Romeo and Juliet 3 7 Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 5 4 Othello
6 8 Activities 82
Introduction In 1807 Charles Lamb and his sister M a r y Lamb were asked by their good friend,William Godwin, to write the stories from the best-known of Shakespeare's plays in a f o r m that children could easily understand. The stories were intended as an introduction to Shakespeare for readers who were too young to read the plays themselves, and not as a replacement. It was suggested that girls in particular, w h o would not in those days be able to use libraries as freely as their brothers, would profit from them. The result was
people,' Charles wrote to a friend at the time. A n d he was right: the stories succeeded beyond expectation, enjoying popularity (with people of all sizes!) until the present day. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the moral tale was an important f o r m of literature for children; stories were used mainly to teach children the difference between right and wrong. This affected the way the Lambs wrote the stories: the characters are shown as either good or bad in a way that is not so obvious in the plays, and the moral at the end of each story is very clear. The Tales attempt, wherever possible, to use Shakespeare's own words to retell the stories, but the language is made easier for the young reader. Some of the stories have also been made less complicated, w i t h fewer characters than the original. For the Lambs, whose lives until this point had not been at all easy, the Tales were their first success in the w o r l d of literature. Charles was born in 1775, nine years after Mary A n n . Their father was a poorly paid lawyer's clerk in London. Charles was sent to the well-known Christ's Hospital School, but Mary, as a girl, did not have the opportunity for such a good education as
her brother. For most of his life, Charles worked as a clerk at East India House, while w r i t i n g in his free time. His work was not well paid, and even though M a r y earned a little money from needlework, the family was poor. M a r y gradually became mentally unbalanced, and then a terrible event took place that changed the brother's and sister's lives for ever. In 1796 their mother tried to stop a fight between M a r y and another girl. The fight ended when Mary killed her mother w i t h a knife. At the court case that followed, M a r y was judged to be mentally i l l and was sent to a mental home. B u t Charles managed to persuade the courts to let h i m take responsibility for looking after her, and she was allowed to return home after three years. Charles spent the rest of his life caring for her, and never married. Because she was k n o w n to have murdered her mother and to have been in a mental home, the pair had to move house several times. B u t on the whole they led a calm and happy life together and brought up a child called Emma Isola, w h o had no parents, as their daughter. Charles died in 1834 and M a r y 13 years later. Charles was a friend of many famous figures of his time, such as the poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He was a respected and original judge of literature w h o also wrote poems, plays and stories. W i t h Mary, he wrote several books for children: they retold the story of the Odyssey in The Adventures of Ulysses (1808);
followed. W i l l i a m Shakespeare, whose plays are retold here in story form, is famous around the w o r l d for both his poems and his plays, but very few solid facts are k n o w n about his life. He was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, to the trader John Shakespeare and his wife M a r y Arden. He probably went to Stratford Grammar School, w h i c h offered free education to local boys. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, and they had three children, Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. In 1592 Shakespeare was vi k n o w n to be in London, acting and w r i t i n g plays, but he may have worked as a schoolmaster before this. Shakespeare became an important member of a theatre company, w h i c h performed at two London theatres, the Globe and the Blackfriars. His plays were given special performances at the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and K i n g James I and his success made h i m a wealthy man. We know that he bought N e w Place, a large and impressive house in Stratford, for his family. He rebuilt the house, moved his wife and daughters there (his son had died in 1596), and spent his later years there himself when he left London. Shakespeare died in 1616 and was buried in the church in Stratford. The stories in this collection are taken from plays written at different times in Shakespeare's professional life. The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy of character, and one of the first plays that Shakespeare wrote. The Winter's Tale was almost his last play. It is called a comedy because the ending is happy, but the characters go through much pain and sorrow before that ending is reached. These two stories were written by M a r y Lamb. The other stories were w r i t t e n by Charles, and are examples of Shakespeare's finest tragedies. Romeo and Juliet is an early play showing how the joys of young love are destroyed by the hatred of others. Hamlet, a terrible tale of revenge, is probably Shakespeare's most famous play. It is jealousy that leads to tragedy in Othello, while King Lear shows the shocking effects of an old man's bad judgement. This book introduces the reader to some of the most famous characters from Shakespeare's most powerful plays.
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