Off the shelf

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.

When theaters shut down during COVID, actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen performed Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto Online. Filmmaker Pinny Grylls captured it all in a documentary, Grand Theft Hamlet.

Called “the finest actor of his generation,” Beale has played just about everyone in Shakespeare’s canon. He reflects on the roles that have shaped his career and how his approach has evolved over time.

In an excerpt from Straight Acting, Will Tosh tells the story of Richard Barnfield’s meteoric rise in literary London in the 1590s and how his groundbreaking poetry influenced Shakespeare’s sonnets.

In Shakespeare’s time, women onstage were played by boys, and for those boy players, fame could be fleeting. Nicole Galland’s novel Boy follows Alexander “Sander” Cooke, a real-life actor in Shakespeare’s company.

Summer’s a great time for reading, whether it’s at the beach or in your backyard. Explore our list of fiction and non-fiction titles about Shakespeare and his world featured on Folger blogs, podcast interviews, and our book club.

Austin Tichenor travels back to Elizabethan England with Nicole Galland’s novel Boy about Shakespeare’s acting company member Alexander Cooke in a surprisingly contemporary exploration of gender roles onstage and off.

Author Anthony Del Col shares how the newest Kill Shakespeare adventure found its inspiration in Westerns like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

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.