Historical tales from Shakespeare

Although in the following pages I have chosen those plays, or most of them, which Charles and Mary Lamb omitted from their Tales from Shakespeare, and although I have taken a title very like theirs, my attempt has not been to round off or tag a conclusion to their inimitable work. They, as wise judges of what their book should be, found that a certain class of play lay outside their purpose. It is just these plays the historical ones which, with a different purpose, are here cast into narrative form.