Clarityfiend: /* Plot summary */ phrasing tweaks
'''''Fools and Mortals''''' is a 2017 [[historical novel]] by [[Bernard Cornwell]] set in [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethan]] [[London]]. The protagonist is a younger brother of [[William Shakespeare]].
==Plot summary==
Fourteen-year-old Richard Shakespeare runs away when he is apprenticed to a brutal, ill-tempered carpenter. He heads to London, where his brother William is a successful actor and playwright. William grudgingly pays for his training as an actor. By the age of 21, Richard is a poorly paid actor in the [[Lord Chamberlain's Men]], a [[playing company]] in which his brother is a Sharer (part-owner).
When a new, larger theatre is being built at the instigation of the Earl of Lechlade, Richard goes there to check out his prospects of switching companies. However, deValle, the earl's manager, is only interested in giving him a position if he will steal his brother's new plays, ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' and ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. Richard, despite William's poor treatment of him, turns him down.
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is to be first performed at the wedding of a granddaughter of [[Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon|Lord Hunsdon]], patron of the Lord Chamberlain's Men and [[Elizabeth I|Queen Elizabeth]]'s cousin. When the only complete copies of both plays are stolen, William flies into a rage and hits his brother in the face, believing Richard to be the thief. However, Richard has an alibi of sorts. Then suspicion falls on younger actor Simon Willoughby, who has been forgetting his lines and resents being passed over for choice roles. This suspicion is confirmed when Simon runs away.
Richard is tired of playing only women. (Women were not allowed to act in [[English Renaissance theatre|Elizabethan theatre]], so female roles were played by boys and young men.) He offers to retrieve the copies if William will give him a man's role in the play. He guesses correctly that Simon has taken the copies to the nearby establishment where both of them were trained (and abused). He beats Simon and gets them back. However, he is initially outraged when his brother gives him the part of [[Francis Flute]], a man who plays a woman in ''Pyramus and Thisbe'', the play-within-the play of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. As he learns more about the role, he sees that it is a good part after all.
As the troupe practices at [[Blackfriars, London|Blackfriars]], one of Hunsdon's mansions, Richard falls in love with Sylvia, a maid to the bride.
Despite various obstacles, including [[Puritans|Puritan]] Pursuivants who seek to shut down the theatres as dens of iniquity, the play is a great success. The wedding guests, including the Queen herself, are enthralled.
William gives Richard the role of [[Mercutio]] in ''Romeo and Juliet''.
==Reception==
[[Kirkus Reviews]] gave the book a favorable evaluation, calling Cornwell, "A master craftsman at work: imaginative, intelligent, and just plain fun."<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>
==References==
[[Category:2017 British novels]]
[[Category:Novels by Bernard Cornwell]]
[[Category:Novels set in Tudor England]]
[[Category:Novels set in London]]
[[Category:HarperCollins books]]
==Plot summary==
Fourteen-year-old Richard Shakespeare runs away when he is apprenticed to a brutal, ill-tempered carpenter. He heads to London, where his brother William is a successful actor and playwright. William grudgingly pays for his training as an actor. By the age of 21, Richard is a poorly paid actor in the [[Lord Chamberlain's Men]], a [[playing company]] in which his brother is a Sharer (part-owner).
When a new, larger theatre is being built at the instigation of the Earl of Lechlade, Richard goes there to check out his prospects of switching companies. However, deValle, the earl's manager, is only interested in giving him a position if he will steal his brother's new plays, ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' and ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. Richard, despite William's poor treatment of him, turns him down.
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is to be first performed at the wedding of a granddaughter of [[Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon|Lord Hunsdon]], patron of the Lord Chamberlain's Men and [[Elizabeth I|Queen Elizabeth]]'s cousin. When the only complete copies of both plays are stolen, William flies into a rage and hits his brother in the face, believing Richard to be the thief. However, Richard has an alibi of sorts. Then suspicion falls on younger actor Simon Willoughby, who has been forgetting his lines and resents being passed over for choice roles. This suspicion is confirmed when Simon runs away.
Richard is tired of playing only women. (Women were not allowed to act in [[English Renaissance theatre|Elizabethan theatre]], so female roles were played by boys and young men.) He offers to retrieve the copies if William will give him a man's role in the play. He guesses correctly that Simon has taken the copies to the nearby establishment where both of them were trained (and abused). He beats Simon and gets them back. However, he is initially outraged when his brother gives him the part of [[Francis Flute]], a man who plays a woman in ''Pyramus and Thisbe'', the play-within-the play of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. As he learns more about the role, he sees that it is a good part after all.
As the troupe practices at [[Blackfriars, London|Blackfriars]], one of Hunsdon's mansions, Richard falls in love with Sylvia, a maid to the bride.
Despite various obstacles, including [[Puritans|Puritan]] Pursuivants who seek to shut down the theatres as dens of iniquity, the play is a great success. The wedding guests, including the Queen herself, are enthralled.
William gives Richard the role of [[Mercutio]] in ''Romeo and Juliet''.
==Reception==
[[Kirkus Reviews]] gave the book a favorable evaluation, calling Cornwell, "A master craftsman at work: imaginative, intelligent, and just plain fun."<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>
==References==
[[Category:2017 British novels]]
[[Category:Novels by Bernard Cornwell]]
[[Category:Novels set in Tudor England]]
[[Category:Novels set in London]]
[[Category:HarperCollins books]]
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