100 Books Like William Shakespeare

Tracy Chevalier writes the novels I want to write! I’ve read just about all of them and was particularly excited to discover Burning Bright. Chevalier’s depiction of London in the early 19th century is masterful, and hugely inspiring for me. Burning Bright is a coming-of-age story that centers around two children’s interactions with the great poet William Blake. I met Tracy Chevalier at the Historical Novel Society Conference in Oxford where she made my day by graciously agreeing to accept a copy of my first novel The Towers of Tuscany which was heavily inspired by her novels and even insisting that I sign it! 

Shakespeare’s plays can be very funny, (many of my friends disagree with this, but I swear by the goddess of Renaissance puns it’s true!), and this is a light, fluffy book that deserves a place on any bookshelf because it embraces silliness and turns it right up to eleven. Our Will’s key predicament is something everyone who has ever written can relate to, being certain you have a literary masterpiece locked up in your mind if only you can be left alone long enough to make it magically appear on the blank page. 

Shakespeare’s Dog is the craziest Shakespearean book I’ve ever read. Not only is the young Stratford Shakespeare’s tale told by his dog, Hooker ̶ the dog speaks a kind of faux-Shakespearean: full of Elizabethan-esque vocabulary and syntax, Anglo-Saxon bawdry, new-coined usages of common words (“the wind flummoxed”; “I knelled the truth”).  Moreover, Rooke must really know his dogs. Because the dog-viewpoint (a frustrated Shakespeare “bites his toenails”) seems right on the money. The struggle of a prodigy youth and his prodigy dog to escape the tawdry, shallow, raucous banality of provincial small-town life is told with vividness, wit, and pathos.

Mary Stewart was the greatest of the Romantic Suspense writers of the 20th Century. I discovered her as a teenager, but I still re-read her books today. This book is an homage to Shakespeare’s The Tempest (including the title), and Stewart weaves in clever allusions throughout this suspense novel.

The first great thing is the setting: Corfu, a Greek island, is said by locals to be the magical island of Prospero, the magician. The young narrator goes to this island. She needs to get away from her failed acting career, and her sister is pregnant and needs care. But the island is full of mystery, and something is not right with the wealthy and eccentric neighbors, two of whom live in an old castle.

This book contains everything from my first recommendation. Spooky setting? Check. Great heroine? Check. Romance? Yes, indeedy. With passages I have re-read many times. Humor: Check.… show more.

Staying in the early modern era, this is an imaginative retelling of the story of Aemilia Lanier (1569–1645), a gifted writer in her own right but is often best remembered as a candidate for Shakespeare’s ‘dark lady’. This means some believe her to be the inspiration for the bard’s passionate sonnets. Born Aemilia Bassano she was the daughter of a musician in the court of Elizabeth I. Lanier published Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Hail, God, King of the Jews) in 1611. This biofiction brings her to life in new ways.

Shapiro’s work is often a model of the kind of writing that I would like to attempt. This book, which focuses on a single year in Shakespeare’s life–1599–and its historical, political, and theatrical events (including performances of Henry V and Julius Caesar), brings its material to life.

It is a deeply researched book, with a wealth of resources listed in its bibliographical essay, but its handling and style are still so captivating and accessible that I couldn’t put it down when I first read it!

When we write about early modern literature and history, we construct narratives that draw on invention and imagination. Shapiro’s book reflects that vital mix of rigorous historical research, insightful interpretations of literary texts, and its own acts of storytelling.

Lesser’s book is a bibliographical ‘detective story’ that I found captivating and is another model of the scholarship that I would like to emulate. It concentrates on a mysterious group of ten plays printed in 1619–most of which feature historical subjects and/or are by Shakespeare–and what we can learn about them, including why several were printed with false attributions and dates and how early readers might have encountered them.

I think Lesser’s book is an incredible achievement in handling complex, technical scholarship and an immense amount of archival research that is also so engrossing and accessible. As a reader, I felt drawn into this journey of discovery that also acknowledges the uncertainty and difficulties in making firm claims about its material. 

As well as being an author of children’s historical fiction, I am a writer and director of children’s plays (including a production at the Edinburgh Fringe performed by actors aged 11-14). So I am always drawn to plays about performing, and this book, set in Elizabethan England, provides a great insight into the world of English theatre in the era of Shakespeare.

The lead character is Ben Button, a boy player with a troupe that travels out of London to perform at a nobleman’s manor house. Our hero immediately becomes embroiled in a quest to discover who has stolen a valuable plate from the manor.

It’s the first book in a series, Elizabethan Mysteries, which features the same boy and his group of players.

Embrace this beloved comic novel with seventy-five-year-old showgirl twins, Dora and Nora Chance. Dora recalls their bawdy existence of struggle and romance hours before partying with the toff side of the family, Shakespearean actor dynasty, the Hazards. The Chances grab life and joy from the wrong side of the tracks. Possibly fathered by actor, Sir Melchior, or his twin brother, the Chance twins struggled to make a living in the illegitimate theater of song and dance. Despite male lovers, their lives are shaped by women, like Hollywood starlet Delia, and the Lady A, both unfortunate wives of their putative father. Disabled and thrown out by cruel daughters, Lady A pops up as Wheelchair when taken in by the warm-hearted Chances. The kindness of women is what matters here.

With this one I'm not going to recommend an edition, because while Martial is witty, bitingly sarcastic and a keen commentator on his society he can also be breathtakingly obscene. Imagine teenage scrawls on toilet walls - if those scrawls were written by Shakespeare - and you'll be close enough. So pick your edition with care – however broad you imagine your mind to be, an unexpurgated Martial will stretch it a bit more and have you chuckling and nodding the rest of the time.