Fools and Mortals by Bernard Cornwell
If you enjoyed Shakespeare in Love, you will
definitely find Bernard Cornwell’s Fools and Mortals up your alley. It
is a lively theatre themed novel that is full of colorful historical detail and
enough action, mystery, and romance to keep you turning the pages right to the
end. Cornwell postulates that Shakespeare had a younger brother
named Richard who also runs away from Stratford to try his luck in the London theatre.
Richard is a fiction, but there was a younger Shakespeare brother named Edmund
who was baptized in Stratford in 1580, was an actor, and did die in London. From
my London Theatre Walks book I can cite a 1607 Southwark Cathedral
sexton’s account ledger that contains the following entry. “Edmund Shakespeare,
a player, buried in the church with a forenoon knell of the great bell 20s.” The critical thing here is the 20 shilling
funeral. It cost only two shillings to be buried in Southwark’s churchyard and
only one shilling for the tolling of the small bell. Most sources agree that successful
playwright, brother William, would have to have been the purchaser of this quite
costly funeral.
From these two tiny biographical tidbits, Cornwell builds an
entire pageant. His fictional Richard Shakespeare is a part time hired man and
small time thief who is trying to get his older brother to move him out of the
category of young boy playing women’s roles into better paid and more
substantial grown up male roles. As the Bard and his Chamberlain’s Men work
frantically to prepare the inaugural production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”,
young Richard runs afoul of nasty puritans, is accused of stealing playscripts,
and finds romance with a nobleman’s young maid servant. It all ends well of
course, and while it is going on you can literally breathe in the atmosphere of
16th century London. You will trod the boards at The Theatre, look
in on the building of the Swan, feel the threat of Puritan opposition to the players,
and participate in the creation of the world’s funniest tragedy, The Most
Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe.
You will want to put this book on your summer reading list.
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