| Edition |
First U.S. edition. |
| Description |
406 pages ; 24 cm |
| Note |
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Bloomsbury. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [357]-388) and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction: considering the poor reputation of wives generally, in particular the wives of literary men, and the traditional disparagement of the wife of the man of the millennium -- Chapter one: introducing the extensive and reputable family of Hathaway alias Gardner of Shottery together with the curious fact that one of their kinsmen was a successful playwright for the Admiral's Men -- Chapter two: introducing the Shakespeare family, with particular attention to the Bard's mother and her role in the oft-told story of the downfall of John Shakespeare -- Chapter three: of Ann Hathaway's looks and demeanour, of age at marriage in the 1580's, the courtship of older women by younger men and whether Shakespeare's wife could read -- Chapter four: of what is likely to happen when a town boy with nothing to his name beyond a way with words woos a serious young woman of good prospects -- Chapter five: of the making of a match, of impediments to marriage and how to overcome them, of bonds and special licences and pregnancy as a way of forcing the issue, of bastards and bastardy, and the girl who got away -- Chapter six: of handfasts, troth-plights and bundling, of rings, gauds, and conceits, and what was likely to happen on the big day -- Chapter seven: considering how and where the bard and his bride set up house, of cottages and cottaging, and of how they understood their obligations to each other -- Chapter eight: of pregnancy, travail and childbirth, of christening and churching, and the society of women -- Chapter nine: pondering how and when it was that young Shakespeare quit Stratford, leaving wife and children to fend for themselves, and whether he dared risk his health and theirs by consorting with prostitutes -- Chapter ten: suggesting that, having sent her boy husband to seek his fortune, with three small children to look after, Ann Shakespeare found work she could do indoors, and with the help of her haberdasher brother-in-law might even have prospered -- Chapter eleven: of how one Stratford boy became a leading printer, and another wrote a sexy poem that became a notorious best-seller, being literally read to pieces, and Ann buried her only son -- Chapter twelve: treating of the curious circumstances of the grant of arms made to William Shakespeare, and the acquisition of the compromise titled to a rambling and ruinous house in a town he spent little or no time in -- Chapter thirteen: of hunger and disorder, introducing the villain of the piece, Sir Edward Greville, who contrived the foul murder of the Bailiff of Stratford, and Ann's friend and ally the young lawyer Thomas Greene -- Chapter fourteen: of Susanna and her match with a gentleman of London and a midsummer wedding at last -- Chapter fifteen: of Ann's reading of the sonnets -- Chapter sixteen: of the poet's younger daughter Judith and the Quiney family, of Ann as maltster and money-lender, and the deaths of Mary and Edmund Shakespeare -- Chapter seventeen: in which Shakespeare returns to the town some say he never left and lives the life of an Anglican gentleman while Ann continues to live the life of a puritan townswoman -- Chapter eighteen: of Shakespeare's last illness and death and how Ann Shakespeare handled the situation -- Chapter nineteen: of Shakespeare's lop-sided will and Ann's options -- dower right, widow-bed or destitute dependency -- Chapter twenty: of burials, and monuments, widows' mites and widows' work, and the quiet death of the quiet woman of Stratford -- Chapter twenty-one: in which the intrepid author makes the absurd suggestion that Ann Shakespeare could have been involved in the First Folio project, that she might have contributed not only papers but also money to indemnify the publishers against loss and enable them to sell a book that was very expensive to produce at a price that young gentlemen could pay. |
| Summary |
Challenges popular beliefs about the estranged nature of Shakespeare's marriage to Ann Hathaway, placing their relationship in a social and historical context that poses alternative theories about her rural upbringing and role in the bard's professional life. |
| Subject |
Hathaway, Anne, 1556?-1623.
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Authors' spouses -- England -- Biography.
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Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Marriage.
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Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Relations with women.
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Women -- England -- Social conditions -- 17th century.
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Women -- England -- Social conditions -- 16th century.
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Authors' spouses -- England -- Biography.
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| ISBN |
9780061537158 |
|
0061537152 |
|
