In Stories from Shakespeare , Marchette Chute opens wide the gateway to the most varied and glorious world ever created by one man. Her retellings of all thirty-six First Folio plays are superbly lucid. It is not Ms. Chute's purpose to provide a substitute for these immortal comedies, tragedies, and histories; rather she seeks to provide the modern reader with essential insight into Shakespeare's narrative genius, clarifying the intricacies of plot and sharply delineating a host of characters, major and minor alike. This she does with surpassing grace and unobtrusive scholarship, closely following the sequence of onstage action and illuminating it with choice quotations and perceptive comments. The New Yorker has termed this work "a beautifully done job." Marchette Chute  (1909–1994) was an American writer best known for her biographies of British literary giants, including Geoffrey Chaucer of England ,  Shakespeare of London , and  Ben Jonson of Westminster.  She was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and president of the PEN American Center.