'Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare ' Summary

Published in 1907, the book has received a number of editions over the later years. Nesbit's collection presents a reworked version of the tales, rewritten to suit what Nesbit considered to be child's mentality and interpretative skills. The tales are sometimes prefaced with the opening "Once upon a time". Iona Opie in her introduction to the 1997 edition praised Nesbit's work by saying that she "has rehabilitated the plays as pure entertainment. She tells the stories with clarity and gusto.... giving the flavour of each play by the skillful use of short quotations"

Erica Hateley described Nesbit's style as follows: "she often retains scraps of the Shakespearean language, but glosses a meaning (or even an interpretation) for it, and quickly summarises entire scenes in brief paragraphs".