Hamnet Book Cover

Hamnet


A Historical Fiction Novel


Subgenres:

  • Literary Historical Fiction,
  • Family Drama,
  • Black Death
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This book is for you if you're into...

  • Historical fiction centered on grief and family resilience
  • Unconventional heroines with mystical healing gifts
  • Stories set against the backdrop of the Black Death

From Little Stack

The first book I always recommend about real people is the masterpiece Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. This novel offers a fresh perspective on Shakespeare’s greatest personal tragedy: the death of his son, Hamnet, from the plague in 1596. It was a tragedy that led to the creation of one of his best-known plays, Hamlet.

Fact is merged with fiction to create a rich tapestry of a novel from the little-known facts of Hamnet and his family. It is a deeply personal story that shows us these infamous figures in a way we have never seen them before.

Moving between timelines and characters, the story follows events up to Hamnet’s tragic death and then follows the family afterwards as they try to come to terms with their heartbreak. Now is the perfect time to read this book as the trailer for the movie - which looks fantastic - has just been released.

Publisher Description

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of The Marriage Portrait delivers a luminous portrait of a marriage, a family ravaged by grief, and a boy whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time.

Soon to be a major motion picture directed by Chloé Zhao and starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn.

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. 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 just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

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