The Shakespeare Stealer

The Shakespeare stealer / Gary Blackwood. -- New York : Dutton Children's Books, c1998.
216 p. ; 22 cm.
ISBN: 0525458638


1. Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 – Fiction. 2. Orphans – Fiction. 3. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 – Fiction. 4. Theater – Fiction.

813.54

Widge is delighted when Dr. Bright takes him away from the orphanage in Yorkshire at age seven to be his apprentice. Vain, melancholy and unaffectionate Dr. Bright educates Widge to read and write in English, Latin, and a kind of shorthand of Dr. Bright’s invention called “charactery,” and then sells his apprenticeship to a brooding, gruff, mysterious, silent, and deadly stranger when Widge is fourteen. Eventually Widge comes to know him as Falconer.

Without hesitation Falconer marches Widge off south. They travel day and night, Falconer warning Widge to keep quiet, and also cutting the throats of a few cutpurses along the way who attempt to waylay them. Eventually they arrive in Leicester, and Widge meets his new master, Simon Bass. Mr. Bass explains his new duties to him. He’s to travel to London.

“…When you go to London, you will attend a performance of a play called The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. You will copy it in Dr. Bright’s ‘charactery’ and you will deliver it to me.”

“… I am a man of business, Widge, and one of my more profitable ventures is a company of players. They are not so successful as the Lord Chamberlain’s of the Admiral’s Men, by they do a respectable business here in the Midlands. As they have no competent poet of their own they make do with hand-me-downs, so well used as to be threadbare. If they could sage a current work, by a poet of some reputation, they could double their box.”

So, accompanied by Falconer, Widge sets off to London to capture a copy of the play. He puts the penny Falconer supplies him with, in the admission box at the Globe, and joins the crowd of groundlings in front of the stage. His transcription goes well, until he gets caught up in the play, and forgets to write down some parts. The next day, to save a penny—they were worth a lot more then—he sneaks in backstage to listen to the lines. Unfortunately he’s discovered . So he makes up a lie. He tells the theater company that he desperately wants to be a player and has run away from his master in the hope of joining them. To his surprise, they take him in. Now he must act the part of a player until he gets an opportunity to complete his copy of the script, or steal the copy owned by the company.

Well developed characters, a believable sense of place, and an interesting plot filled with surprises and disguises pack this exceptionally good tale of Elizabethan theater full of verisimilitude and delight.