THE STORY: THE HERBAL BED is based on actual events that occurred in Stratford-upon-Avon in the summer of 1613, when William Shakespeare's elder daughter Susanna Hall was publicly accused of having a sexual liaison with Rafe Smith, a married neighb

At last—a key that unlocks the secrets of Shakespeare's life Intimacies with Southampton and Marlowe, entanglements in London with the elusive dark lady, the probable fathering of an illegitimate son—these are among the mysteries of Shakespeare's rich and turbulent life that have proven tantalizingly obscure. Despite an avalanche of recent scholarship, René Weis, an acknowledged authority on the Elizabethan period, believes the links between the bard's life and the poems and plays have been largely ignored. Armed with a wealth of new archival research and his own highly regarded interpretations of the literature, the author finds provocative parallels between Shakespeare's early experiences in the bustling market town of Stratford—including a dangerous poaching incident and contacts with underground Catholics—and the plays. Breaking with tradition, Weis reveals that it is the plays and poems themselves that contain the richest seam of clues about the details of Shakespeare's personal life, at home in Stratford and in the shadowy precincts of theatrical London—details of a code unbroken for four hundred years.

Shakespeare in Children's Literature looks at the genre of Shakespeare-for-children, considering both adaptations of his plays and children's novels in which he appears as a character. Drawing on feminist theory and sociology, Hateley demonstrates how Shakespeare for children utilizes the ongoing cultural capital of "Shakespeare," and the pedagogical aspects of children's literature, to perpetuate anachronistic forms of identity and authority.

Susanna Shakespeare yearns to travel to London like her father, to experience the world of actors and poets and to follow her own dream of singing, a path usually followed only by men.