Elizabethan Fiction

In England in the Age of Shakespeare, Jeremy Black takes readers on a tour of life in the streets, homes, farms, churches, and palaces of the Bard’s era. Panning from play to audience and back again, Black shows how Shakespeare's plays would have been experienced and interpreted by those who paid to see them. From the dangers of travel to the indignities of everyday life in teeming London, Black explores the jokes, political and economic references, and small asides that Shakespeare’s audiences would have recognized.

It is the early 1600s and the City of London sees Queen Elizabeth living out her dying days as Scottish King James waits in the wings to take to the throne. Meanwhile, in Southwark, along the south bank of the River Thames, Master Hardy Drew, Constable of the Bankside Watch, maintains law and order amongst the cut-throats and smugglers, in the taverns and brothels, as well as with the gentlefolk, who flock across the river to enjoy the latest plays by Shakespeare and Jonson.

When Sir Francis Walsingham, spymaster to the Tudor Queen Elizabeth, learns of a Jesuit assassin landing on England's shores, he's determined to go to any lengths to protect his Protestant Queen. His protege, Kit Scarlett, discovers a letter revealing the name of the assassin—Gregorio Luca. Together with Scottish agent, Iomhar Blackwood, Walsingham sends them on a mission to track Luca down. It is clear Luca is only coming with one task in mind—to kill. But is his target the English queen?

Alexander “Sander” Cooke is the most celebrated “boy player” in the Chamberlain’s Men, William Shakespeare’s theatre company. Indeed, Sander’s androgynous beauty and deft portrayal of female roles have made him the toast of London, and his companionship is sought by noblewomen and -men alike. And yet, now at the height of his fame, he teeters on the cusp of adulthood, his future uncertain. Often, he wishes he could stop time and remain a boy forever.

These remarkable letters represent a wealth of as-yet-undiscovered knowledge about Shakespeare's relationships, personality, and career as he carved out his place in the chaotic world of 16th-century London. Whether you are a Shakespeare scholar, merely a fan, or even if you have never read any of his works, the stories of the The Lost Letters will enthrall you with their fascinating and true tale.

The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents.

To Each Their Own is a modern-writ comedy in the style of the Theatre of Elizabeth the First, written with a scholar's research and a modern Shakespearean actor's wit. It includes many of the elements we are used to seeing in Shakespeare (sassy servants, pompous Noblemen, love-at-first-sight, shipwrecks, magic, fights, sacrifice, and slapstick) and language that conveys much more than single emotions.

The day Rodney Hawkhurst rides onto her father's grand estate, Lizbeth Gillingham is a wild eighteen-year-old, with tangled red hair, dirt on her apron, and an archer's bow in her hand. A chance encounter leads to a clandestine kiss, leaving the tomboy Lizbeth wondering if the life of a sophisticated lady could be so bad if she was on the arm of Rodney Hawkhurst... But Rodney has not come to see Sir Gillingham about Lizbeth. He has come to borrow money for a daring sea voyage, and to ask for the hand of Phillida, Lizbeth's elegant sister.

The writing of sonnets was a craze among poets of the 1590s. The sonnet, an Italian form, was introduced into England by Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), who modelled himself on Petrarch, and by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547). It was Surrey who invented what is now known as the Shakespearean sonnet - three differently rhyming quatrains and a clinching couplet. This collection of Elizabethan sonnets and lyrics were recorded by Anthony Quayle.