Thomas Bowdler was an English physician known for publishing The Family Shakespeare, an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's plays edited by his sister Henrietta Maria Bowdler. The two sought a version they saw as more appropriate than the original for 19th-century women and children. Bowdler also published works reflecting an interested knowledge of continental Europe. His last work was an expurgation of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published posthumously in 1826 under the supervision of his nephew and biographer, Thomas Bowdler the Younger. From his name derives the eponym verb bowdlerise or bowdlerize, meaning to expurgate or to censor something through the omission of elements deemed unsuited to children in literature and films and on television.
Mary Pope Osborne is an American author of children's books and audiobook narrator. She is best known as the author of the Magic Tree House series, which as of 2017 sold more than 134 million copies worldwide. Both the series and Osborne have won awards, including for Osborne's charitable efforts at promoting children's literacy. One of four children, Osborne moved around in her childhood before attending the University of North Carolina. Following college, Osborne traveled before moving to New York City. She somewhat spontaneously began to write, and her first book was published in 1982. She went on to write a variety of other children's and young adult books before starting the Magic Tree House series in 1992. Osborne's sister Natalie Pope Boyce has written several compendium books to the Magic Tree House series, sometimes with Osborne's husband Will.
Sir John Gilbert was an English artist, illustrator and engraver.
Charles Lamb was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–1847).
William Mulready was an Irish genre painter living in London. He is best known for his romanticising depictions of rural scenes, and for creating Mulready stationery letter sheets, issued at the same time as the Penny Black postage stamp.
Mary Anne Lamb was an English writer. She is best known for the collaboration with her brother Charles on the collection Tales from Shakespeare (1807). Mary suffered from mental illness, and in 1796, aged 31, she stabbed her mother to death during a mental breakdown. She was confined to mental facilities for most of her remaining life. She and Charles presided over a literary circle in London that included the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, among others.
Dame Marina Sarah Warner, is an English historian, mythographer, art critic, novelist and short story writer. She is known for her many non-fiction books relating to feminism and myth. She has written for many publications, including The London Review of Books, the New Statesman, Sunday Times, and Vogue. She has been a visiting professor, given lectures and taught on the faculties of many universities.
Mary Victoria Cowden Clarke was an English author, and compiler of a concordance to Shakespeare.
Children's poetry is poetry written for, appropriate for, or enjoyed by children.
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales is a series of twelve half-hour animated television adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, originally broadcast on BBC2 and S4C between 1992 and 1994.
Blackie & Son was a publishing house in Glasgow, Scotland, and London, England, from 1809 to 1991.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare is a 1907 collection published by E. Nesbit with the intention of entertaining young readers and retelling William Shakespeare's plays in a way they could be easily understood by younger readers. She also included a brief Shakespeare biography, a pronunciation guide to some of the more difficult names and a list of famous quotations, arranged by subject. Some editions are entitled Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children.
Robert Daniel San Souci was an American children's book author known for his retellings of folktales for children. He often worked with his brother, Daniel San Souci, a children's book illustrator. He presented at conferences, trade shows, and in schools in the United States. According to Mary M. Burns in Horn Book, his adaptations are typified by "impeccable scholarship and a fluid storytelling style."
Charles Moseley, who also publishes as C. W. R. D. Moseley, is an English writer, scholar, and teacher, and a former fellow of Wolfson College and Life Fellow of Hughes Hall in Cambridge, as well as a fellow of the English Association, the Society of Antiquaries of London, and the Royal Society of Arts.
Gertrude Demain Hammond or Mrs. McMurdie was a British painter and children's book illustrator.
Walter Stanley Paget was an English illustrator of the late 19th and early 20th century, who signed his work as "Wal Paget". Paget held a gold medal from the Royal Academy of Arts, and was the youngest of three brothers, Henry M. Paget (eldest) and Sidney Paget, all illustrators.
The Family Shakespeare is a collection of expurgated Shakespeare plays, edited by Thomas Bowdler and his sister Henrietta ("Harriet"), intended to remove any material deemed too racy, blasphemous, or otherwise sensitive for young or female audiences, with the ultimate goal of creating a family-friendly rendition of Shakespeare's plays. The Family Shakespeare is one of the most often cited examples of literary censorship, despite its original family-friendly intentions. The Bowdler name is also the origin of the term "bowdlerise", meaning to omit parts of a work on moral grounds.
