Marie Shedlock – författare

Can You Keep Your Readers Riveted by Your Storytelling?

Some years ago I heard Miss Shedlock tell stories in England. Her fine sense of literary and dramatic values, her power in sympathetic interpretation, always restrained within the limits of the art she was using, and her understanding of educational values, based on a wide experience of teaching, all marked her as an artist in story-telling. She was equally at home in interpreting the subtle blending of wit and wisdom in Daudet, the folk lore philosophy of Grimm, or the deeper world philosophy and poignant human appeal of Hans Christian Andersen.

Then she came to America and for two or three years she taught us the difference between the nightingale that sings in the tree tops and the artificial bird that goes with a spring. Cities like New York, Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago listened and heard, if sometimes indistinctly, the notes of universal appeal, and children saw the Arabian Nights come true.

Yielding to the appeals of her friends in America and England, Miss Shedlock has put together in this little book such observations and suggestions on story-telling as can be put in words. Those who have the artist''s spirit will find their sense of values quickened by her words, and they will be led to escape some of the errors into which even the greatest artists fall. And even those who tell stories with their minds will find in these papers wise generalizations and suggestions born of wide experience and extended study which well go far towards making even an artificial nightingale''s song less mechanical. To those who know, the book is a revelation of the intimate relation between a child''s instincts and the finished art of dramatic presentation. To those who do not know it will bring echoes of reality.

(from the Preface)

This classic is now republished for modern writers and storytellers to perfect their craft. The goal is riveted readers that want to buy your next book and the one after.

The degree you can tell a story and breathe life into its characters will measure your success as a storyteller and so, an author.

Get Your Copy Now.

Eastern Stories and Legends. By Marie L. Shedlock. Originally Published in 1920.

"These stories of the Buddha-Rebirths are not for one age or for one country, but for all time, and for the whole world. Their philosophy might be incorporated into the tenets of faith of a League of Nations without destroying any national forms of religious teaching. On the other hand those who prefer the foundation of more orthodox views will be astonished to find their ethics are identical with many of those inculcated in the stories: here we find condemnation of hypocrisy, cruelty, selfishness, and vice of every kind and a constant appeal to Love, Pity, Honesty, loftiness of purpose and breadth of vision. And should we reject such teachings because they were given to the World more than 2,000 years ago? Since it is wise to take into consideration the claims and interests of the passing hour it is well to re-introduce these stories at a moment when, perhaps more than ever before, East and West are struggling to arrive at a clearer understanding of one another.

In Tagore''s essay on the relation of the Individual to the Universe, he says: ''In the West the prevalent feeling is that Nature belongs exclusively to inanimate things and to beasts; that there is a sudden unaccountable break where human nature begins. According to it, everything that is low in the scale of beings is merely nature, and whatever has the stamp of perfection on it, intellectual or moral, is human nature. It is like dividing the bud and the blossom into two separate categories and putting their grace to the credit of two different and antithetical principles. But the Indian mind never has any hesitation in acknowledging its kinship with nature, its unbroken relation with all.''

This is perhaps the best summing up of the value of this collection. Since the publication of the book in 1910, I have had many opportunities of testing the value of the dramatic appeal in these stories both for adults and boys and girls of adolescent age. When presented at this impressionable period, the inner meaning will sink more deeply into their minds than the same truths presented in a more direct and didactic fashion.

I am greatly indebted to Professor Rhys Davids, not only because he has placed the material of his translations from the Pali at my disposal, but also because of his unfailing kindness and help in directing my work. I am fortunate to have had the restraining influence of so great a scholar so that I might not lose the Indian atmosphere and line of thought which is of such value in these stories.

I most gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the Cambridge Press, by whose courtesy I have been able to include several of the stories published in their volumes.

I present here a selection from over 500 stories."

- Marie L. Shedlock

These stories of the Buddha-Rebirths are not for one age or for one country, but for all time, and for the whole world. Their philosophy might be incorporated into the tenets of faith of a League of Nations without destroying any national forms of religious teaching. On the other hand those who prefer the foundation of more orthodox views will be astonished to find their ethics are identical with many of those inculcated in the stories: here we find condemnation of hypocrisy, cruelty, selfishness, and vice of every kind and a constant appeal to Love, Pity, Honesty, loftiness of purpose and breadth of vision. And should we reject such teachings because they were given to the World more than 2,000 years ago? Since it is wise to take into consideration the claims and interests of the passing hour it is well to re-introduce these stories at a moment when, perhaps more than ever before, East and West are struggling to arrive at a clearer understanding of one another.

In Tagore''s essay on the relation of the Individual to the Universe, he says: "In the West the prevalent feeling is that Nature belongs exclusively to inanimate things and to beasts; that there is a sudden unaccountable break where human nature begins. According to it, everything that is low in the scale of beings is merely nature, and whatever has the stamp of perfection on it, intellectual or moral, is human nature. It is like dividing the bud and the blossom into two separate categories and putting their grace to the credit of two different and antithetical principles. But the Indian mind never has any hesitation in acknowledging its kinship with nature, its unbroken relation with all."

This is perhaps the best summing up of the value of this collection. Since the publication of the book in 1910, I have had many opportunities of testing the value of the dramatic appeal in these stories both for adults and boys and girls of adolescent age. When presented at this impressionable period, the inner meaning will sink more deeply into their minds than the same truths presented in a more direct and didactic fashion.

I am greatly indebted to Professor Rhys Davids, not only because he has placed the material of his translations from the Pali at my disposal, but also because of his unfailing kindness and help in directing my work. I am fortunate to have had the restraining influence of so great a scholar so that I might not lose the Indian atmosphere and line of thought which is of such value in these stories.

I most gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the Cambridge Press, by whose courtesy I have been able to include several of the stories published in their volumes.

I present here a selection from over 500 stories.