Book Club: Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Warwickshire in the 1580s.

Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford-upon-Avon, and the couple have three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith.

The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play entitled Hamlet.

Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, and at its heart, the loss of a beloved child.

Above all, this novel is a stunning portrait of a mother’s grief. As Agnes prepares for Hamnet’s burial, when she goes to his grave or can’t bear to part with his clothes, we all feel the depth of her grief.

Hamnet has won many awards, including the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction, and has garnered enormous literary acclaim.