Elizabethan Fiction

In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical training whatsoever, so I am forced to be more brisk and breezy than scholarly.’ This collection of 20 reviews, essays and pieces of memoir from the next three decades tells the story of what happened next.

London, winter of 1589. The city is alive with intrigue, and anticipation. The players of Lord Strange’s Men are rehearsing a daring new play, penned by one of their promising young actors, William Shakespeare. But excitement turns to disaster when the authorities shutter the theatre over a trivial offense, plunging Will into uncertainty and despair. Determined to press on, he begins crafting a grisly revenge tragedy—Titus Andronicus—hoping to sell it to another troupe. But before he can do so, his entire collection of playscripts is stolen. His reputation, his career—everything is ...

1564: Devon sailor Francis Drake sets out on a journey of adventure. Drake learns of routes used to transport Spanish silver and gold, and risks his life in an audacious plan to steal a fortune.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Bad Blood is a fantastic historical fiction novel that does not shy away from the dark complications of the world," - Reedsy Discovery A gripping fast-paced historical fiction adventure set in rebellious Ireland in the 1590s. Eunan Maguire lives in a small village in Fermanagh. He is mistreated by his parents and then taken to Enniskillen as a hostage to ensure his father’s loyalty. He returns after being trained as a Galloglass warrior to confront his parents and to ensure his father pledges to the prospective new Maguire. But before he can do that the English raid ...

London in the time of Queen Elizabeth I is a bustling place, its streets crowded with vendors selling goods from all over the world. In the courtyard of St. Paul's Cathedral, Alice Wood competes with other booksellers, hawking pamphlets, plays, and the latest poetry from the continent. It is a lonely life for a hardworking young widow, and she will soon put it aside. When a black-clad stranger visits, speaking in riddles and asking questions about her long-vanished son, Alice will be drawn into an adventure straight out of one of her faerie stories.

In England in the Age of Shakespeare, Jeremy Black takes readers on a tour of life in the streets, homes, farms, churches, and palaces of the Bard’s era. Panning from play to audience and back again, Black shows how Shakespeare's plays would have been experienced and interpreted by those who paid to see them. From the dangers of travel to the indignities of everyday life in teeming London, Black explores the jokes, political and economic references, and small asides that Shakespeare’s audiences would have recognized.

Elizabeth's reign begins. Can the divide between Protestants and Catholics be healed? Or will Elizabeth's rule be as bloody as her sister Mary's was? Richard Fitzwarren's hopes that England may turn away from the religious strife wrought by Mary seem dashed. Beneath the surface, a very real battle is being waged against anyone with power who professes to an adherence to Rome and the Catholic faith. Can he still remain loyal when faced with such tyranny? Jack, recovering, finds out what it actually means to finally be in control of his inheritance. He remains a target, many would like to ...

Frances Walsingham is the only surviving child of Queen Elizabeth’s ‘spymaster’ Sir Francis Walsingham. Better educated than most men, her father arranges her marriage to warrior poet Sir Philip Sidney. After Philip Sidney is killed in battle, Frances becomes Countess of Essex, and is banished from court after her husband Sir Robert Devereaux’s rebellion against the queen.

London 1600. When an attempt is made on Queen Elizabeth’s life, Serjeant Noah Ames races to her rescue, then sets out to identify the culprit among a band of foreigners who’ve newly arrived from the Continent to join with the seditious Lord Essex. In the course of his investigation, Noah uncloaks an unmitigated reign of evil that has resulted in the murders of kings, queens, and religious minorities ... and which now threatens Noah’s life for reasons no one would ever suspect. Will he pay the ultimate price for forgetting that the past is never past?

A German Princess with a guilty secret. The King is in love with Anna's portrait, but she has none of the accomplishments he seeks in a new bride. She prays she will please Henry, for the balance of power in Europe rests on this marriage alliance. But Anna's past is never far from her thoughts, and the rumours rife at court could be her downfall. Everyone knows the King won't stand for a problem queen. Anna of Kleve. The fourth of Henry's Queens. Her story.

The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents.

As Stephen Long steps ashore in England one gray dawn in May 1581, he wonders how many more Catholics will have to die to make Queen Elizabeth feel secure. Involuntarily he trembles at the thought that soon he may be numbered among them.

For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. The Royal Art of Poison is a hugely entertaining work of popular history that traces the use of poison as a political - and cosmetic - tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today.

A World in Turmoil. 1558, and Europe is in revolt as religious hatred sweeps the continent. Elizabeth Tudor has ascended to the throne but she is not safe in this dangerous new world. There are many who would see her removed, not least Mary Queens of Scots, who lies in wait in Paris. A New Order. Elizabeth determines to set up a new secret service: a group of resourceful spies and courageous agents entrusted to keep her safe and in power. As she searches for those who will make the difference, one man stands out.

In the shadow of London’s grand cathedral, across the Thames in Southwark, a network of prostitutes known as the Winchester Geese operate under the “protection” of the Bishop of Winchester, whose power over the liberty of the Clink gives him dominion over the brothels and their souls. Among them is Marion “Mare” Fleet, a fiercely intelligent woman with a hidden vendetta. Mare rose from a riverside foundling to the bishop’s most trusted agent—and the Bishop's most dangerous liability. When a murdered clergyman washes up in the Thames, her investigation leads her into a ...

The day Rodney Hawkhurst rides onto her father's grand estate, Lizbeth Gillingham is a wild eighteen-year-old, with tangled red hair, dirt on her apron, and an archer's bow in her hand. A chance encounter leads to a clandestine kiss, leaving the tomboy Lizbeth wondering if the life of a sophisticated lady could be so bad if she was on the arm of Rodney Hawkhurst... But Rodney has not come to see Sir Gillingham about Lizbeth. He has come to borrow money for a daring sea voyage, and to ask for the hand of Phillida, Lizbeth's elegant sister.

LONDON 1600. When the Earl of Essex is removed from command and placed under arrest for reaching a forbidden truce with the Irish rebels, Serjeant Noah Ames reluctantly accepts a commission to investigate the earl’s fitness for command, and the two are pitted against each other once again. Meanwhile, Noah’s beautiful daughter, Lady Jessica, has sought to remarry into the nobility, but events have thus far frustrated her plans. One day, Noah attends a briefing where the Queen’s new commander displays maps of English military positions in Ireland. Noah’s suspicions are aroused when he...

When Sir Francis Walsingham, spymaster to the Tudor Queen Elizabeth, learns of a Jesuit assassin landing on England's shores, he's determined to go to any lengths to protect his Protestant Queen. His protege, Kit Scarlett, discovers a letter revealing the name of the assassin—Gregorio Luca. Together with Scottish agent, Iomhar Blackwood, Walsingham sends them on a mission to track Luca down. It is clear Luca is only coming with one task in mind—to kill. But is his target the English queen?

These remarkable letters represent a wealth of as-yet-undiscovered knowledge about Shakespeare's relationships, personality, and career as he carved out his place in the chaotic world of 16th-century London. Whether you are a Shakespeare scholar, merely a fan, or even if you have never read any of his works, the stories of the The Lost Letters will enthrall you with their fascinating and true tale.

To Each Their Own is a modern-writ comedy in the style of the Theatre of Elizabeth the First, written with a scholar's research and a modern Shakespearean actor's wit. It includes many of the elements we are used to seeing in Shakespeare (sassy servants, pompous Noblemen, love-at-first-sight, shipwrecks, magic, fights, sacrifice, and slapstick) and language that conveys much more than single emotions.