NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare’s life … here is a novel … so gorgeously written that it transports you.” —The Boston GlobeIn 1580’s England, during the Black Plague a young Latin tutor falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman in this “exceptional historical novel” (The New … “exceptional historical novel” (The New Yorker) and best-selling winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable re-imagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.
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A bold undertaking, beautifully imagined and written.
Exquisite, immersive and compelling… deserves to win prizes.
Rich, immersive, and evocative!
Hamnet & Judith is a vivid, compelling, powerful interpretation that sweeps you away to Stratford-upon-Avon in the late 1500s and into the life of the Shakespeare family, from the courtship and marriage of William and Agnes to the devastating loss of their young son Hamlet at the tender age of eleven.
The prose is eloquent and emotive. The characters are well-drawn, endearing, and authentic. And the plot is an absorbing tale of life, loss, love, grief, family, aspirations, heartache, and motherhood.
Overall, Hamnet & Judith is a pensive, alluring, beautifully written story by O’Farrell that does a remarkable job of highlighting her incredible knowledge and research into these renowned historical figures whose personal lives are often unknown, forgotten, or overshadowed by the patriarch’s incredibly profound contribution to the world of drama and literature.
An extraordinary book – a triumph of the writer’s imagination. We are transported to Stratford and the young Shakespeare’s romance with Agnes and how both families regard this as less than an ideal match. In parallel we have the story of their young son Hamnet searching for his mother or anyone who will help his seriously ill sister. We already know the outcome will be the boy’s tragically early death but O’Farrell has us hoping for another outcome. I could picture every last detail. Wonderful story telling. Highly recommended.
I devoured this book in a weekend. I love Maggie O’Farrell’s novels but I think this might be her best. I was worried that because it was set in Elizabethan times, I might feel a bit distanced from the characters – like looking in at them through a window. In fact the plot propelled me straight into Shakespeare’s world. And nothing is really very different – people still laugh and cry; live and die. The story traces the death of Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet and also explores what it was like to be Mrs Shakespeare. She is a wonderfully strong character. A fiercely loving and loyal mother but with a secret life as a healer and bee-keeper. If you like strong heroines , romance and a strong family drama – this is the book for ou.y