Shakespeare's Sister

By Doris Gwaltney

Virginia Woolf, inA Room of One's Own, wrote: "Let us imagine. . .what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say. . .as adventurous, as... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571740414
• ISBN13: 9781571740410
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

An original, charming romp about a talented girl writer

This is a uniquely charming novel about Shakespeare's "sister" Judith (the character suggested by Virginia Woolf). Adolescent Judith, a girl with a strong will and incredible writing talent, is to be married to a horrid old man against her will; borrowing the oversize shoes and smelly clothing of a simpleminded Stratford boy, she takes off in disguise to throw herself on the mercy and small lodging of her brother Will, he just struggling to start his own career. On the road she falls in with a traveling player, Arthur, with an astonishing ability to get himself in and out of scrapes; he also quickly understands that Judith is less of a boy than she professes. Once in London she achieves quick popularity as a boy actor, attracts unwanted romantic attention, and goes through many adventures, all the time only wanting to be taken seriously as a writer. The portrait of her brother William is a delight: a good loving brother, yet self-centered and wanting only to be rid of this difficult girl who will listen to no man's advice that she ought to go home and marry. By the end of the book the reader is cheering for spunky Judith who will not be kept down. The author's knowledge of the period and Elizabethan theater is very good.

A great read set in Elizabethan England

Ms Gwaltney has embodied the spirit of Shakespeare's time and place in a story which takes off on the famous quote from Virginia Woolf. An amusing tale of William Shakespeare's hypothetical sister, Judith, and her attempts to fill her call to write in a society which believed such a thing was not possible. Delightful