WINNER: WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONWINNER: FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR, BRITISH BOOK AWARDSWINNER: BOOKS ARE MY BAG READER'S CHOICE AWARDAS FEATURED ON BBC2'S BETWEEN THE COVERSSHORTLISTED: AN POST IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR, WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION

'She's like no one I've ever met... She's like fire and water all at once.' Warwickshire, 1582. Agnes Hathaway, a natural healer, meets the Latin tutor, William Shakespeare. Drawn together by powerful but hidden impulses, they create a life together and make a family. As William moves to London to discover his place in the world of theatre, Agnes stays at home to raise their three children but she is the constant presence and purpose of his life. When the plague steals 11-year-old Hamnet from his loving parents, they must each confront their loss alone. And yet, out of the greatest suffering, something of extraordinary wonder is born. This new play based on Maggie O'Farrell's best-selling novel and adapted by award-winning playwright Lolita Chakrabarti (Life of Pi, Red Velvet, Hymn), pulls back a curtain on the imagined family life of the greatest writer in the English language. Hamnet is a love letter to passion, birth, grief and the magic of nature. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in April, 2023.

A staggeringly beautiful and unbearably poignant novel. O'Farrell is one of the most surprisingly quiet radicals in fiction