This first volume of Hazlitt’s series reprints two complete Tudor jest-books in their original spelling: A Hundred Mery Talys, from the only known copy, and Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres from the edition of 1567. Their short comic anecdotes of cuckolds, friars, scholars, shrewish wives and the French king Louis XI are the kind of stories Shakespeare’s audiences knew.
Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing is accused of taking her wit from the Hundred Merry Tales; here is the book itself. Download the free EPUB.