E.Nesbit, one of the great children's novelists, relates in the introduction to this book how she and her children had visited Shakespeare's home and how the children came away anxious to know the work of this great author. When they tried to read the plays they were baffled by the language and the complexities of the stories. She offered to tell them the stories in a simple way. First she told them "A Midsummer Nights Dream." They loved it so much they urged her to make a book out of her retellings, and she did.
