Inspired by Shakespeare

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.

What is Shakespeare’s role in a genre of literature—science fiction—that flourished centuries after his plays first took the stage? Scholar Sarah Annes Brown explores the influence of Shakespeare the man and his writing.

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.

Who was Lambert Simnel—the boy who nearly claimed the Tudor throne? Author Jo Harkin explores royal ambition, historical memory, and the fine line between fact and fiction in her new novel The Pretender.

One of 18th-century Britain’s most prolific narrative painters, Henry Fuseli found inspiration in Shakespeare, with his painting of Macbeth and the witches one of his “best poetical conceptions.”

Judith Shakespeare’s untold story comes to life in The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter. Tiffany imagines Judith’s journey through rebellion and scandal in a world of political upheaval and Puritan rule. Explore the history, fiction, and legacy of Shakespeare’s daughter.

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is having a moment—actually two, with A Room in the Castle and The Comedy of Hamlet! (a prequel) exploring Shakespeare’s characters before, during, and after the events of his greatest tragedy.

How does King Lear resonate in a world reshaped by climate change? Julia Armfield’s Private Rites, set in a flooded London, explores inheritance, power, and queerness amid disaster. Longlisted for the 2024 Climate Fiction Prize, she shares how Shakespeare influences her work.

What if Gertrude had more power than we thought? What if Ophelia’s fate wasn’t sealed? Playwright Lauren Gunderson reclaims the voices of Hamlet’s women in A Room in the Castle, a sharp, feminist reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Are Bob Dylan and William Shakespeare truly solitary geniuses given what collaborative art forms music and theater are? A look at how A Complete Unknown and Shakespeare in Love depict young genius on the rise.

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.