WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"[An] exceptional winner.... It expresses something profound about the human experience that seems both extraordinarily current and at the same time, enduring."
--Martha Lane Fox, Chair of The Women's Prize for Fiction judges
TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A PLAGUE THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.
England, 1580. A young Latin tutor--penniless, bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an eccentric young woman: a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people, but once she settles on the Henley Street in Stratford she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband. His gifts as a writer are just beginning to awaken when their beloved twins, Hamnet and Judith, are afflicted with the bubonic plague, and, devastatingly, one of them succumbs to the illness.
A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a hypnotic recreation of the story that inspired one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time, Hamnet & Judith is mesmerizing and seductive, an impossible-to-put-down novel from one of our most gifted writers.
Published as Hamnet in the US and the UK.
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"[An] exceptional winner.... It expresses something profound about the human experience that seems both extraordinarily current and at the same time, enduring."
--Martha Lane Fox, Chair of The Women's Prize for Fiction judges
TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A PLAGUE THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.
England, 1580. A young Latin tutor--penniless, bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an eccentric young woman: a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people, but once she settles on the Henley Street in Stratford she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband. His gifts as a writer are just beginning to awaken when their beloved twins, Hamnet and Judith, are afflicted with the bubonic plague, and, devastatingly, one of them succumbs to the illness.
A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a hypnotic recreation of the story that inspired one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time, Hamnet & Judith is mesmerizing and seductive, an impossible-to-put-down novel from one of our most gifted writers.
Published as Hamnet in the US and the UK.
Born in Northern Ireland in 1972, MAGGIE O'FARRELL grew up in Wales and Scotland and now lives in Edinburgh. Her debut novel, After You'd Gone (2000), won a Betty Trask Award and was followed by My Lover's Lover (2002); The Distance Between Us (2004), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (2006); Costa Book Award winner The Hand That First Held Mine (2010); Instructions for a Heatwave (2013); This Must Be the Place (2016); and most recently, the memoir I Am, I Am, I Am (2018).
A New York Times Top Ten Book of 2020
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
"[An] exceptional winner. . . . It expresses something profound
about the human experience that seems both extraordinarily current
and at the same time, enduring.” —Martha Lane Fox, Chair of The
Women's Prize for Fiction judges
"Hamnet & Judith is an exploration of marriage and grief
written into the silent opacities of a life that is at once
extremely famous and profoundly obscure . . . In Hamnet & Judith,
Shakespeare's marriage is complicated and troubled, yet
brimming with love and passion . . . This novel is at once about
the transfiguration of life into art—it is O'Farrell's extended
speculation on how Hamnet's death might have fueled the creation of
one of his father's greatest plays—and at the same time, it is a
master class in how she, herself does it . . . O'Farrell has a
melodic relationship to language. There is a poetic cadence to her
writing and a lushness in her descriptions of the natural world . .
. We can smell the tang of the various new leathers in the glover's
workshop, the fragrance of the apples racked a finger-width apart
in the winter storage shed, and we can see how the pale London sun
"reaches down, like ladders, through the narrow gaps in buildings
to illuminate the rain glazed street.". . . As the book unfolds, it
brings its story to a tender and ultimately hopeful conclusion:
that even the greatest grief, the most damaged marriage, and most
shattered heart might find some solace, some healing." —Geraldine
Brooks, The New York Times Book Review
"All too timely . . . inspired . . . [An] exceptional historical
novel." —The New Yorker
"Magnificent and searing . . . A family saga so bursting with life,
touched by magic, and anchored in affection that I only wish it
were true. Of all the stories that argue and speculate about
Shakespeare’s life, about whether he even wrote his own plays, here
is a novel that matches him with a woman overwhelmingly more than
worthy . . . I nearly drowned at the end of this book, and at
some other spots besides. It would be wise to keep some tissues
handy. Hamnet & Judith is so gorgeously written that it transports
you from our own plague time right into another and makes you glad
to be there." —The Boston Globe
"A thing of shimmering wonder." —David Mitchell
"Hamnet & Judith is a beautiful read, a devastating one, intricate,
and breathtakingly imaginative. It will stay with me a long
time." —Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of
Harold Fry
"What could be more common, over centuries and continents, than the
death of a child—and yet Maggie O'Farrell, with her flawless
sentences and furious heart, somehow makes it new. This story of
remarkable people bereft of their boy will leave you shaking with
loss but also the love from which family is spun." —Emma Donoghue,
author of Room
"Love, grief, hope, resilience—the world of this novel is so vivid
I could nearly smell the grass in the fields, hear the rain in the
gutters. In moments where the story shoots up to heaven I was
there, too, grieving with these characters, feeling how lucky weall
are to be alive, understanding how desperately we want the people
we love to be remembered. It’s without a doubt one of the best
novels I’ve ever read." —Mary Beth Keane, author of Ask Again,
Yes
"Stunning. The writing is exquisite, immersive and compelling . . .
deserves to win prizes." —Marian Keyes
"One of the most eagerly awaited books of the spring. . . . [Hamnet
& Judith] takes an unconventional approach to literary history and
has already been hailed as a critical hit." —The Guardian
"Miraculous. . . . [A] beautiful imagination of the short life of
Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, and the untold story of his wife,
'Agnes' Hathaway, which builds into a profound exploration of the
healing power of creativity." —The Observer
"The story of Hamnet Shakespeare has been waiting in the shadows
for over four hundred years. Maggie O’Farrell brings it dazzlingly,
devastatingly, into the light." —Kamila Shamsie, author of Home
Fire
"Blisteringly brilliant. . . . You’ll lap up this intricately told
story of grief, love and the bond between twins." —Cosmopolitan
UK
"Heartstopping. Hamnet & Judith does for the Shakespeare story what
Jean Rhys did for Jane Eyre, inhabiting, enlarging and enriching it
in ways that will alter the reader’s view for ever." —Patrick Gale,
author of Take Nothing With You
"Grief and loss so finely written I could hardly bear to read it."
—Sarah Moss, author of Ghost Wall
"Hamnet & Judith knits the loose threads of Shakespeare's shadowy
family life into a shimmering tapestry. Rooted in history but
lightly drawn, this dreamlike novel builds to a haunting finish.
Gorgeous, penetrating, and memorable." —Alix Hawley, author of My
Name Is a Knife
"Hamnet & Judith is breathtaking—as rich in historical detail as it
is emotionally resonant. This is O'Farrell at her best."
—Claire Cameron, author of The Last Neanderthal
"Luminous and sensual, Hamnet & Judith draws open a curtain on a
new vision of Shakespeare’s children and mysterious marriage.
O’Farrell’s creation of Anne (Agnes) Hathaway as a strong, dark,
visioning person carries such poignancy, beauty and surprise—yet
seems the perfect answer to what Shakespeare’s wife might have been
like. In fact, Maggie O’Farrell has imagined a Shakespearean
heroine, unschooled yet intuitively gifted, flesh to his brilliant
mind. A fascinating exploration into the domestic roots of one of
Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies." —Shaena Lambert, author of Petra
and Oh, My Darling
"A bold undertaking, beautifully imagined and written." —Claire
Tomalin, author of Charles Dickens: A Life
"I don’t know how anyone could fail to love this book. It is a
marvel: a great work of imaginative recreation and a great story.
It is also a moral achievement to have transformed that young child
from being a literary footnote into someone so tenderly alive that
part of you wishes he had survived and Hamlet never been written."
—Dominic Dromgoole, author of Hamlet Globe to Globe
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