The last time we talked about Judith Quiney was to discuss her youth as the younger sister of Susanna Shakespeare, the twin of Hamnet, and the overall blacksheep of her famous family due to her husband’s excommunication and the marriage scandal causing her father, William Shakespeare, to re-write his will to exclude Judith. The details of Judith Quiney’s life are as sparse, as they are tantalizing, and historical fiction has jumped on the opportunity to try and piece together the fragments. We welcome one such writer this week, Grace Tiffany, having just completed her second book on Judith Quiney, that offers a fictionalized rendering of what was possible for Judith in the second half of hr life, where she not only far outlived her scandalous youth, but she lived far beyond the life of her famous father, dying at the old age of 77 in 1662, close to 50 years after the death of Shakespeare himself.
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Grace Tiffany
Grace Tiffany is a successful novelist, author, and professor of Shakespeare at Western Michigan University. Her first novel, My Father Had a Daughter, was published in 2003, and is a fictional tale about the life of Shakespeare’s second daughter Judith. Her latest book, The Owl was a Baker’s Daughter, builds on the historical facts about the life of Judith Shakespeare Quiney, dramatizing a fictional reality for Judith based on the knowable history of a mysterious life. In addition to her novels, Grace has received numerous award for her research into Shakespeare history and her notable fiction work. She has written scholarly articles and monographs on Renaissance history and culture, with her work appearing in Shakespeare Studies, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, and The Renaissance Quarterly, among others. James Shapiro, the celebrated Shakespearean author and one of the foremost Shakespeareans of our time, has called Grace’s book The Turquoise Ring, one of the six best creative adaptations of Shakespeare in history. Learn more about Grace, her books, and where you can read her latest work, all in the show notes for today’s episode.
I’ll be asking Grace Tiffany about:
- Despite the scandal, Judith goes on to have several children with Thomas, so did her reputation recover after the death of her father, or did she remain a person of suspicion?
- Does she have a relationship with her sister, Susanna, as an adult?
- Grace writes in her book that John Hall, Susanna Shakespeare’s husband, trained Judith in the “Paraclesian healing arts.” Grace, did Judith Quiney work with John Hall in real life? Her husband, Thomas, was a vintner and tobacconist, why would she not have assisted her own husband, rather than Susanna’s?
- …and more!
Books and Resources Grace Tiffany recommends:
My Father Had a Daughter, a prequel to The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter
God’s Englishman by Christopher Hill
- Note from Grace: It’s about Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War.
“The Closure of the Theatres” by Gabriel Egan
- Note from Grace: Full info and an abstract are given via this link (below), but it may have to be accessed via a university library. It talks about the Puritan Reformers’ closings of the theater, which is part of the context of my character Nathan Field (actually a real historical person, though I doubt he survived as long as I have him survive) and his attempts to keep playing alive in London even when stage plays were outlawed during the Civil War era. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/yearenglstud.44.2014.0103
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That Shakespeare Life is always excited to connect with fellow Shakespeareans who love learning something new about the bard. Subscribe to our show on your favorite listening platform, and please consider leaving us a rating and a review to help our show reach new listeners!
That’s it for this week! Thank you for listening! I’m Cassidy Cash and I hope you learn something new about the bard.
I’ll see you next time!
