Excerpt from Shakespeare's Stories of the English Kings It is inevitable, in retelling the stories of Shakespeare's English Kings, that we should recall the names of Charles and Mary Lamb. These gifted authors are associated immortally with Shakespeare, and their Tales must remain a classic for youthful readers, to whom a simple prose rendering is of great value as an introduction to the genius of our greatest poet. The Histories, however, were not included in the Tales, hence there is opportunity for an endeavour to provide a prose version of this attractive section of the great plays. Beginning with the period before the Roman invader came to our shores, and passing through the times of Plantagenet and Tudor to the opening days of Elizabeth, Shakespeare has presented in his wonderful series an almost complete view of the great figures of English history, indicating with a sure touch the movements, crises, and turning-points of our national development. The canvas is a crowded one, but there is no superfluous figure, and from the king to the peasant he holds the mirror of genius up to Nature and reflects life. The inner significance has been well indicated by Walter Pater. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.