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Hamnet

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Hamnet

By: Maggie O'Farrell
Narrated by: Jessie Buckley
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About this listen

A BRAND NEW RECORDING, NARRATED BY JESSIE BUCKLEY.

'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times
'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell

TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.

On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.

Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week.

Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.

WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021
WINNER: WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER: FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR, BRITISH BOOK AWARDS
WINNER: BOOKS ARE MY BAG READER'S CHOICE AWARD
AS FEATURED ON BBC2'S BETWEEN THE COVERS
SHORTLISTED: AN POST IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR, WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION

©2020 Maggie O'Farrell (P)2025 Headline Publishing Group Limited Biographical Fiction Family Life Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Renaissance Small Town & Rural Fiction

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Right, Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet. This one… it's not just a book, it’s an experience. I’d heard so much about it, of course, everyone was raving, but you never quite know until you dive in yourself. And when I did, it pulled me under in the best possible way.
What O'Farrell does is take this historical footnote – the death of Shakespeare’s son – and blow it open into a world so rich and palpable, you almost feel like you're breathing the same air as Agnes and her family. And Agnes! She's the real star here. Forget "Shakespeare's wife," O'Farrell gives us this incredible, wild, intuitive woman with her herbs, her bees, and a connection to the natural world that just vibrates off the page. I mean, the way she feels things, sees things, it's just captivating.
The storytelling, hopping between the unfolding tragedy and the earlier, passionate spark between Agnes and the young Latin tutor… it’s seamless. You know where it's all heading, but it doesn't make the journey any less heartbreaking. The sheer, visceral depiction of the plague's arrival, that scene where it travels across the country, it's so vivid it gave me chills. And the grief… oh, the grief. O'Farrell doesn't shy away from the raw, messy, all-consuming agony of losing a child. You feel Agnes’s pain, her desperate yearning, her inability to move on, and it’s just gut-wrenching.
Honestly, this book is less about the famous playwright and more about the invisible lives, the quiet strength of the women, and the devastating impact of loss. It’s written with such tenderness and precision that you're just immersed in their lives, their smells, their fears, their love. Hamnet is one of those books that settles in your bones and makes you think about legacy, memory, and how even the most profound sorrow can inspire something truly immortal. An absolute triumph, honestly.

Hamnet: A Heart-Wrenching Masterpiece

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What a great story, so brutal and moving and tender. I am crying and not only because I have just finished it…

So well read by Jessie Buckley.

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only that it ended..was fantastic....an incredible illumination into possibilities and wakefulness and the subdued messages developed learned or instinctive. was deeply unusual ..I want to absorb it again....

hamnet

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Jessie Buckley is excellent reading this book that I love. O’Farrell’s book is a masterpiece, simple but so poetic, it speaks so eloquently for those who grieve. But here Jessie Buckley’s performance is full of understanding, of the meaning of these words. Impeccable.

A magnificent book, and magnificently read here.

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I loved Jessie Buckley’s narration. It’s just like being there and part of the story.

Maggie’s amazing words. It was just tremendous.

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If I read this as a book, when I would have got through it more quickly, I may have enjoyed it more. 13 audio hours of a fey woman's small domestic life and her imagined thoughts were just too long and tedious for me.

I didn't like or believe in Agnes’s character and her ‘mystic’ qualities. Walking herself off in labour into the forest alone to give birth seemed especially unlikely. By the time Hamnet dies I’d already had enough but had to face another four hours of her excessive grief and consequent neglect of her daughters which compounded my lack of sympathy for her.

I did enjoy the William parts though, especially the theatrical glimpses and would have loved more of those. So I suppose I have to say it is a well written book, as is the principal character; I just was so bored and irritated by her!

Very long in audio format

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