num_pages: 372
description: Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage at its heart the loss of a beloved child. Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street Stratford and has three children: a daughter Susanna and then twins Hamnet and Judith. The boy Hamnet dies in 1596 aged eleven. Four years or so later the husband writes a play called Hamlet. Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes a woman intriguingly absent from history.A New York Times Notable Book (2020) Best Book of 2020: Guardian Financial Times Literary Hub and NPR.
language: English
title: Hamnet
publisher: Tinder Press