#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from Hamnet to Juliet & Romeo

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation.

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.

This month we’re invited to pick a travel guide as our starting book.  I’ve selected this one – Shakespeare-Land by Walter Jerrold, illustrated by E.W. Haslehurst – from my collection of books in the ‘Beautiful England series’. (I possess twelve in all, picked up in secondhand bookshops over the years.)

Links from each title in the chain will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

The cover illustration of Shakespeare-Land is Anne Hathaway’s cottage, so my first link is to Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell which is the fictionalised story of the death of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway’s son, Hamnet. (Although Shakespeare’s wife is usually referred to as Anne, in the book she is called Agnes reflecting how her name appeared in her father’s will.)

My next link takes us from events in the life of Shakespeare to events in the life of one of his creations, King Lear. Or to be precise, Lear’s unnamed wife who is the subject of Learwife by JR Thorpe.

A quote from King Lear is the source of the title of If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio, a thriller set in an elite college in which drama students study and perform only the works of Shakespeare.

One of the plays from which they perform scenes is Julius Caesar.  The Ides of March by Thornton Wilder, an epistolary novel which depicts events leading up to the assassination of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BC. (At this point, fans of the Carry On films are allowed to exclaim, ‘Infamy, infamy. They’ve all got it in for me.’)

A quotation from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar provides my next link.  The Fault In Our Stars by John Green references Cassius’s lines in Act 1, Scene 3, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” 

The Fault In Our Stars features two people in love who face the prospect of dying young. Given the Shakespearean theme, I expect you know where I’m going here. Well, I am, sort of… Juliet and Romeo by David Hewson is the famous love story retold as a romantic thriller and with the focus very much on Juliet.

My chain has taken me on a journey of Shakespearean proportions. Where did your chain take you this month?