Shakespeare on the stage and off

In the spirit of Shakespeare, Mary Sharratt’s The Dark Lady’s Mask is an enchanting fictionalized biography featuring Shakespeare and Amelia Lanier, a Renaissance poet. In 1593, the life and fortunes of Amelia Bassano Lanier, the great female Renaissance poet, intersects with Shakespeare's. They collaborate on his early plays while traveling in Italy, she seeking her inheritance, Shakespeare, an adventure. The enchanting work of historical fiction is full of poetry and passion; Shakespeare’s passion for plays and Lanier’s for poetry. The sumptuous language and descriptions will draw you into Lanier’s life and loves in Elizabethan England.

Karen Harper’s Mistress Shakespeare (NAL, 2010) is another book about Shakespeare with a feminine twist. In 1583, Shakespeare marries first Anne Whateley, whom he loves dearly and the very next day, Anne Hathaway who is carrying his child. Whateley, a merchant’s daughter, moves to London to escape her broken heart and run the family business. Of course, her life intersects with Shakespeare and the theater and, their smoldering love affair sparks passion and great poetry. Grab your book of Shakespeare Sonnets and read along as Shakespeare and Whateley spout phrases and poems at one another. Timeless and beautiful, the poetry is at the heart of this romance.

If you are in the mood for mystery, check out The Roaring Boy: A Nicholas Bracewell Mystery by Edward Marston. It features a play about a recent murder. When an actor dies in the first scene, then another, the Roaring Boys are forced to continuously rewrite their play and solve the mystery. Here, playwrights who compose plays and edit on the fly, and imagine that Shakespeare did the same until his plays were ‘perfect.’

These books provide wonderful descriptions of London of the late 1500s, from cold rooms and warm clothes, to theater and romance.