Book excerpts

In an excerpt from Siobhan Keenan’s new biography of actor Richard Burbage, we look at his rise to fame as Shakespeare’s Richard III.

In an excerpt from scholar Graham Watson’s groundbreaking new book, we meet 19th-century Bronte biographer Elizabeth Gaskell as she discovers the real author of Jane Eyre.

Julie Hammonds’ heartwarming novel takes readers backstage at a Shakespeare festival staging Hamlet to save its fortunes. In this excerpt, we meet the cast on the first day of rehearsal.

Kathryn Vomero Santos explores an intriguing reference to Henry IV, Part 1 in Korean American author Chang-rae Lee’s novel Native Speaker.

How can A Midsummer Night’s Dream speak to students today? Scholar Gail Kern Paster writes that the 400-year-old play connects to a wide range of contemporary issues that 21st-century audiences care about.

Who were the ladies-in-waiting to each of Henry VIII’s six wives and what were their lives like? An excerpt from Nicola Clark’s The Waiting Game looks at these overlooked but influential figures.

In Humans: A Monstrous History, Surekha Davies shows how our multi-millennial relationship with monsters has shaped the origins of the modern world and ideas about humanness and otherness.

In an excerpt from Grace Tiffany’s imaginative novel, The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter, we meet Judith Shakespeare at age 61, a midwife-apothecary in war-torn 17th-century England on the run to avoid arrest for witchcraft.

An interview with Dr. Jessica Goethals and an excerpt from her 2023 book Margherita Costa, Diva of the Baroque Court.

An interview with Dr. Joseph Mansky and an excerpt from his 2023 book Libels and Theater in Shakespeare’s England: Publics, Politics, Performance.

An interview with Dr. Jennie M. Votava and an excerpt from her 2023 book, Shakespeare’s Histories On Screen: Adaptation, Race and Intersectionality.

An interview with Dr. Debapriya Sarkar and an excerpt from her 2023 book, Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science.