1900’s

Gary Blackwood
The Shakespeare Stealer (1998), Shakespeare’s Scribe (2000), and Shakespeare’s Spy (2003)
New York: E.P.Dutton

In these three historical novels written to hold the attention of 7-13 year olds (not to mention most grown-ups), Blackwood offers an engaging and historically grounded introduction to many of the major themes in Shakespeare studies. We see Elizabethan London through the eyes of Widge, an orphan who first meets Shakespeare while using shorthand to steal Hamlet. The plot brings to life such topics as playhouse rivalries, boy actors, religious tensions in Elizabethan England, the frozen Thames, plague outbreaks, traveling troupes, and Elizabethan politics and intrigue. Shakespeare himself is presented as both genius and sympathetic avuncular figure with a warm sense of humor. –VH

Susan Cooper
New York: Penguin, 1999

Twentieth-century Nathan Field, who also shares a name with an actor from the First Folio’s list of “Principall Actors,” travels through time to find himself a boy actor directed by the Bard himself. Elizabethan theater culture bubbles forth with all its chaotic disorder and flashes of brilliance. Shakespeare wins our hearts as a wise and caring father figure to the orphaned Nat. In return, Nat unwittingly protects Shakespeare from the bubonic plague. Nat sadly returns to his own times, enabling Shakespeare to live and to continue writing.

O put me in thy books!

400 Years of Shakespeare in Fiction

The Shakespeare Stealer series

Gary Blackwood
The Shakespeare Stealer (1998), Shakespeare’s Scribe (2000), and Shakespeare’s Spy (2003)
New York: E.P.Dutton

King of Shadows

Susan Cooper
New York: Penguin, 1999

Gary Blackwood The Shakespeare Stealer (1998), Shakespeare’s Scribe (2000), and Shakespeare’s Spy (2003) New York: E.P.Dutton

Susan Cooper New York: Penguin, 1999

Gary Blackwood
The Shakespeare Stealer (1998), Shakespeare’s Scribe (2000), and Shakespeare’s Spy (2003)
New York: E.P.Dutton

Susan Cooper
New York: Penguin, 1999