Grigson worked for ten years as a translator from Italian, and in 1959 she wrote a new translation of Carlo Collodi's fairy tale "The Adventures of Pinocchio", which she thought was "the only version of Pinocchio to transmit the liveliness and toughness of the original". She translated Gian Antonio Cibotto's 1962 work "Scano Boa" in 1963 and, the same year, also translated Cesare Beccaria's 1764 work "Dei delitti e delle pene"; the work was published as "Of Crimes and Punishments", and it won the 1966 John Florio Prize for Italian translation. Jane and Geoffrey then worked on a joint project aimed at juveniles that looked at the meaning of 65 artworks in the context of their time and their enduring impact; "Shapes and Stories" was published in 1964. "The Times" and "The Guardian" both thought it "original and beautiful". A follow-up work, "Shapes and Adventures", was published in 1967.