Off the shelf

In an excerpt from Thinking Through Shakespeare, author David Womersley looks at Richard II and how the monarch misunderstands the divine right of kings in ways that lead to his eventual downfall despite the warnings of others around him.

Jane Austen wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers yet little is known of them today. In Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, rare book dealer Rebecca Romney recreates what Jane read. In this excerpt, we learn how the project began.

Shakespeare’s era was abuzz with mathematical progress. Rob Eastaway uncovers the many surprising ways math shaped Shakespeare’s plays―and his world―in an excerpt from his book, Much Ado About Numbers.

In an excerpt from We Did OK, Kid, Hopkins talks about the fateful Saturday night as a boy when he saw Olivier’s 1948 adaptation of Hamlet and the film sparked a passion for acting that would lead him on a path that no one could have predicted.

Austin Tichenor rereads Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels—“with an s like the English poet”—and discovers that the hard-boiled Boston detective’s literary roots go even deeper than remembered.

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.