Comment

Apr 19, 2017
I really enjoyed this, 'tises and 'prithees aside (see NY Times review). It is a vibrant portrait of an unsettled time in Elizabethan times, during cruel religious intolerance and drastic class and gender divisions. Though a bit formulaic it's a great read -- a love story about a very young and still restless Shakespeare years before his success in London and Katharine de L'Isle, the aristocratic young widow in whose household Shakespeare is the tutor. Katharine is educated well beyond the usual limitations of the age and Chapin makes her the inspiration for the Dark Lady of the Sonnets. And the love story has a real twist.