Dark Aemilia

"For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright; Who art as black as hell, as dark as night." —William Shakespeare, Sonnet 147 In the boldest imagining of the era since Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth, a finalist for the Italian Premio del Castello del Terriccio, this spellbinding novel of witchcraft, poetry, and passion, brings to life Aemilia Lanyer, the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's Sonnets—the playwright's muse and his one true love. The daughter of a Venetian musician but orphaned as a young girl, Aemilia Bassano grows up in the court of Elizabeth I, becoming the Queen's favorite. She absorbs a love of poetry and learning, maturing into a striking young woman with a sharp mind and a quick tongue. Now brilliant, beautiful, and highly educated, she becomes mistress of Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain and Queen's cousin. But her position is precarious; when she falls in love with court playwright William Shakespeare, her fortunes change irrevocably. A must-read for fans of Tracy Chevalier (Girl With a Pearl Earring) and Sarah Dunant (The Birth of Venus), Sally O'Reilly's richly atmospheric novel compellingly re-imagines the struggles for power, recognition, and survival in the brutal world of Elizabethan London. She conjures the art of England's first professional female poet, giving us a character for the ages—a woman who is ambitious and intelligent, true to herself, and true to her heart.

A TALE OF SORCERY AND PASSION IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON—WHERE WITCHES HAUNT WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND HIS DARK LADY, THE PLAYWRIGHT'S MUSE AND ONE TRUE LOVE The daughter of a Venetian musician, Aemilia Bassano came of age in Queen Elizabeth's royal court. The Queen's favorite, she develops a love of poetry and learning, maturing into a young woman known not only for her beauty but also her sharp mind and quick tongue. Aemilia becomes the mistress of Lord Hunsdon, but her position is precarious. Then she crosses paths with an impetuous playwright named William Shakespeare and begins an impassioned but ill-fated affair. A decade later, the Queen is dead, and Aemilia Bassano is now Aemilia Lanyer, fallen from favor and married to a fool. Like the rest of London, she fears the plague. And when her young son Henry takes ill, Aemilia resolves to do anything to save him, even if it means seeking help from her estranged lover, Will—or worse, making a pact with the Devil himself. In rich, vivid detail, Sally O'Reilly breathes life into England's first female poet, a mysterious woman nearly forgotten by history. Full of passion and devilish schemes, Dark Aemilia is a tale worthy of the Bard.

Amelia Bassano Lanier is proved to be a strong candidate for authorship of Shakespeare's plays: Hudson looks at the fascinating life of this woman, believed by many to be the dark lady of the sonnets, and presents the case that she may have written Shakespeare's plays.

Aemilia Lanyer was a Londoner of Jewish-Italian descent and the mistress of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chamberlain. But in 1611 she did something extraordinary for a middle-class woman of the seventeenth century: she published a volume of original poems. Using standard genres to address distinctly feminine concerns, Lanyer's work is varied, subtle, provocative, and witty. Her religious poem "Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum" repeatedly projects a female subject for a female reader and casts the Passion in terms of gender conflict. Lanyer also carried this concern with gender into the very structure of the poem; whereas a work of praise usually held up the superiority of its patrons, the good women in Lanyer's poem exemplify worth women in general. The essays in this volume establish the facts of Lanyer's life and use her poetry to interrogate that of her male contemporaries, Donne, Jonson, and Shakespeare. Lanyer's work sheds light on views of gender and class identities in early modern society. By using Lanyer to look at the larger issues of women writers working within a patriarchal system, the authors go beyond the explication of Lanyer's writing to address the dynamics of canonization and the construction of literary history.

From the author of Ecstasy, a novel of Renaissance England’s first female poet, and her collaboration—and love affair—with William Shakespeare. Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and to gain freedoms only men enjoy—and then a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything. The two outsiders strike up a literary bargain: they leave plague-ridden London for Italy, where they begin secretly writing comedies together and where Will falls in love with the beautiful country—and with Aemilia, his Dark Lady. Their Italian idyll, though, cannot last. Will gains fame and fortune for their plays back in London and years later publishes the sonnets mocking his former muse. Not one to stand by in humiliation, Aemilia takes up her own pen in her defense, and in defense of all women. Named One of the Best Books of the Year by the St. Paul Pioneer Press “An absorbing bildungsroman that grapples with strikingly contemporary issues of gender and religious identification”—New York Times Book Review “An exquisite portrait of a Renaissance woman pursuing her artistic destiny in England and Italy, who may—or may not—be Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.”—Margaret George, best-selling author of The Splendor Before the Dark “The idea of a smart, beautiful, artistic woman telling Shakespeare, ‘We shall write comedies, you and I’ is as heady as the elderflower wine Aemilia’s household staff brews.”—Washington Post “Atmospheric, well-researched, carefully plotted…and, like Shakespeare’s plays, chock-full of equal parts mirth and pith to please all.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

2017-2018 Sarton Women's Book Awards Winner in Historical Fiction 2018 International Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Historical Emilia Bassano has four strikes against her: she is poor, beautiful, female, and intelligent in Elizabethan England. To make matters worse, she comes from a family of secret Jews. When she is raped as a teenager, she knows she probably will not be able to make a good marriage, so she becomes the mistress of a much older nobleman. During this time she falls in love with poet/player William Shakespeare, and they have a brief, passionate relationship—but when the plague comes to England, the nobleman abandons her, leaving her pregnant and without financial security. In the years that follow, Emilia is forced to make a number of difficult decisions in her efforts to survive, and not all of them turn out well for her. But ultimately, despite the disadvantaged position she was born to, she succeeds in pursuing her dreams of becoming a writer—and even publishes a book of poetry in 1611 that makes a surprisingly modern argument for women’s equality.

Thee daughter of a Venetian musician but orphaned as a young girl, Aemilia Bassano grows up in the court of Elizabeth I, becoming the Queen's favourite. She absorbs a love of poetry and learning, maturing into a striking young woman with a sharp mind and a quick tongue. Now brilliant, beautiful and highly educated, Aemilia is mistress of Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain and Queen's cousin. But her position is precarious; when she falls in love with court playwright William Shakespeare, her fortunes change irrevocably. A decade later, the Queen is dead, and Aemilia Bassano is now Aemilia Lanyer, fallen from favour and married to a fool. Like the rest of London, she fears the plague. And when her son Henry becomes ill, Aemilia will do anything to save him, even making a pact with the Devil himself.

Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645) was the first woman poet in England who sought status as a professional writer. Her book of poems is dedicated entirely to women patrons. It offers a long poem on Christ's passion, told entirely from a woman's point of view, as well as the first country house poem published in England. Almost completely neglected until very recently, her work changes our perspective on Jacobean poetry and contradicts the common assumption that women wrote nothing of serious interest until much later. Mistress and friend of influential Elizabethan courtiers, Lanyer gives us a glimpse of the ideas and aspirations of a talented middle class Renaissance woman.