Hamnet

De: Maggie O'Farrell

Narrado por: Jessie Buckley

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn, directed by ACADEMY AWARD® winner Chloé Zhao.

The bestselling author of The Marriage Portrait delivers a deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare’s eleven-year-old son, Hamnet, and the years leading up to the production of his great play.

"Miraculous... brilliant... A novel told with the urgency of a whispered prayer — or curse... A richly drawn and intimate portrait of 16th-century English life set against the arrival of one devastating death." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.

Amazing, amazing, amazing book

Jesse Buckley took this story to a place that left me absolutely breathless. Her exquisite and glorious rendition brought the characters to life in a way I’ve rarely seen matched. Just sublime.

The most gorgeous of reads!

It was pure perfection. I saw the movie and then realized it was a book and although the movie was flawless the book is an otherworldly experience. The writing and narration combo will make your heart burst!

Transported: exquisite language: metaphors that paint vivid landscapes of land, heart and soul

Hamnet inhabited my life, my consciousness, heart and soul for a full weekend. The interpretation by Jessie Buckley was captivating, riveting and tender. She captured my full attention with every word, phrase, pause.

She brought the author’s masterfully crafted verse to life minute by minute, hour after hour to the last two words, “Remember me.”

Jesse Buckley’s interpretation of Maggie O’Farrell’s masterfully written story lives on in my heart
and soul.
—Alexandria Hilton 12/29/25

Devastatingly Beautiful

This book was so beautifully written that the reader has the full experience of being actually within the story with all senses. The description of how GRIEF feels is visceral and devastating, almost too much to bare. I could smell and taste the 16th century. This prose transported me and I could not stop reading.

The BEST Version of “Hamnet”

I listened to both versions of this novel. Jessie Buckley’s version was far more enjoyable, because she read with real emotion—just as Agnes would have recounted this tragedy. Ms. Buckley was fabulous, and I will order other novels if only to hear her narration.