Word count 9,135

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Jennifer Bassett. William Shakespeare. Born April 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Died April 1616. Married Anne Hathaway: two daughters, one son. Actor, poet, famous playwright. Wrote nearly forty plays. But what was he like as a man? What did he think about when he rode into London for the first time . . . or when he was writing his plays Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet . . . or when his only son died? We know the facts of his life, but we can only guess at his hopes, his fears, his dreams.

Word count 6,306 Bestseller

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by William Shakespeare. There are broken hearts and kisses and then weddings, so this is a story about love. There are actors who are funny because they cannot act, so it is also a story that makes people laugh. And there are fairies, spirits of the night, so it is a story about mischief and magic too. What happens when love and laughter come together with magic in an Athenian forest? A Midsummer Night's Dream was written in about 1596 and is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. It has been retold for Bookworms, not as a play, but as a story.

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by John Escott. Money or love? Which is more important in life? Can money buy anything? Can it help a young man to marry the girl he loves? Does money really make people happy, or does it just cause problems? These four plays about money, love, and life are adapted from short stories written a hundred years ago by the great American storyteller O. Henry. Henry had his own difficulties with money and loneliness, and wrote from personal experience.

A level 2 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by Janet Hardy-Gould. There were six of them – three Katherines, two Annes, and a Jane. One of them was the King’s wife for twenty-four years, another for only a year and a half. One died, two were divorced, and two were beheaded. It was a dangerous, uncertain life. After the King’s death in 1547, his sixth wife finds a box of old letters – one from each of the first five wives. They are sad, angry, frightened letters. They tell the story of what it was like to be the wife of Henry VIII of England.

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West. How do you get a licence if you want to keep a monkey? What can you do if your wife has a lover? How can you see into the future? Where can you go for an exciting but cheap holiday somewhere hot and far away? How can you persuade your girlfriend or boyfriend to marry you? The characters in these six original short plays are looking for answers to these questions. While trying to solve their problems, people get into some very funny situations. Each play gives an amusing view of life today, and there is often an unexpected ending.