BOOKS OF THE YEAR
‘Hamnet’ Review: Shakespeare & Son
A woman laments the death of the young child she shared with a rising playwright.
July 24, 2020 10:19 am ET
In 1585, in the English market town of Stratford-upon-Avon, a couple with a young daughter welcomed twins into their growing family. They named them Hamnet and Judith, probably after the local baker Hamnet Sadler and his wife, Judith. The two couples appear to have been close: When William Shakespeare, the father of the twins, drew up his will in 1616, he would leave Hamnet Sadler 26 shillings, 8 pence “to buy him a ringe.” By then his son Hamnet, named for the baker, was two decades dead, buried in 1596 at the age of 11. The Stratford burial register for that day reads, “Hamnet filius William Shakspere.”