cover image Shakespeare's Storybook: Folk Tales That Inspired the Bard

Shakespeare's Storybook: Folk Tales That Inspired the Bard

Patrick Ryan. Barefoot Books, $19.99 (80pp) ISBN 978-1-84148-307-8

Shakespeare's Storybook: Folk Tales That Inspired the Bard retold by Patrick Ryan, illus. by James Mayhew, lets readers in on the secret of what lies behind seven masterpieces such as Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. For example, King Lear, Ryan argues, has its roots in ""Cap-O-Rushes,"" a tale that begins with the king ""asking his daughters how much they love him"" then follows the young daughter who has adventures like those of Cinderella; Ryan also mentions some influential events closer to home (Shakespeare's daughters being of a marriageable age; a wealthy Londoner whose daughters try to gain their inheritance by suspicious means). (Barefoot, $19.99 80p ages 8-up ISBN 1-84148-307-9; Sept.)