Romantic fiction was born for modern Europe on Italian soil. Boccaccio of fourteenth-century Florence and Boccaccio’s long line of disciples--Bandello of Milan, Giraldi Cinthio of Ferrara, and many writers of less familiar name of the sixteenth century--had for generations before Shakespeare’s epoch furnished not only Italy, but all the Western countries of Europe with their chief recreative literature in prose. The Italian novels were through the second half of the sixteenth century constantly translated into English and French, and it was to those English or French translations of the Italian romances that Shakespeare owed the main suggestion for all the plots of his comedies (save _Love’s Labour’s Lost_) and for many of those of his tragedies. Belleforest’s “Histoires Tragiques,” a collection of French versions of the Italian stories of Bandello, was very often in his hands. Novels by Bandello are the ultimate sources of the stories of _Romeo and Juliet_, of _Much Ado about Nothing_, and of _Twelfth Night_. _All’s Well that Ends Well_ and _Cymbeline_ largely rest on foundations laid by Boccaccio. The tales of _Othello_ and _Measure for Measure_ are traceable to Giraldi Cinthio. But although Shakespeare’s borrowings from the frank and vivacious fiction of sunny Italy were large and open-handed, his debt was greater in appearance than it was in reality. He freely altered and adapted the borrowed stories in accordance with his sense of dramatic and artistic fitness, so that the finished plays present them in shapes which bear little relation to their original forms. At times he intertwined one borrowed story with a second, and his marvellous ingenuity completely changed the aspect of both; each assumed new and unexpected point and consistency. With such effect did he combine in _The Merchant of Venice_ the story of the caskets with the story of Shylock’s bond with Antonio. His capacity of assimilating all that he read was as omnipotent as his power of assimilating all that passed in life within range of his eye or ear. The stories that he drew from books on which to found his plays can only be likened to base ore, which the magic of his genius had the faculty of transmuting into gold. But for young readers, who approach Shakespeare’s work for the first time through the present narration of the stories of his plays, it is not necessary to learn whence Shakespeare derived their bare lineaments, or how he breathed into them the glowing spirit of life. It is essential that young readers should find delight and recreation in the tales as he finally presented them in his plays. Such delight and recreation I believe the contents of this volume is fitted to afford them.