Who was Lambert Simnel—the boy who nearly claimed the Tudor throne? In late 15th-century England, identity wasn’t just a matter of birth—it could be a political weapon, a tool for rebellion, and sometimes, an outright performance. The story of Simnel, a boy plucked from obscurity and passed off as the York heir, reveals how precarious the Tudor dynasty really was—and how easily the lines between truth and fiction could blur.

Author Jo Harkin joins us to explore the strange life of Simnel, the so-called Yorkist “pretender” who nearly toppled Henry VII. In her new novel The Pretender, Harkin imagines Simnel’s life beyond the history books, from his childhood on a farm to his years at court. Along the way, she unpacks what it meant to be groomed for kingship, what royal power struggles looked like from a child’s point of view, and how historical fiction can fill in the gaps of the past.

Though Shakespeare never wrote a play about Henry VII, his portrayal of Richard III helped shape how we remember the Wars of the Roses—and how we understand power, myth, and legacy. Harkin reflects on those cultural inheritances, showing how writing about this era means grappling with historical facts and the fictions we’ve come to accept. Simnel’s story reminds us that what endures isn’t always what’s real, but what people are ready to believe.

Jo Harkin’s debut speculative fiction novel, Tell Me An Ending, was a New York Times Book of the Year. Her first historical novel, The Pretender, was published in April 2025 in the U.K. and the U.S. She lives in Berkshire, England.

From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published April 22, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

What do monsters tell us about how people understand the world—and each other? In early modern Europe, the monstrous wasn’t just the stuff of fairy tales. It was a way to categorize, explain, and justify human differences.

Historian Surekha Davies joins us to explore how ideas of wonder, race, and the monstrous shaped European thought in the age of empire. These weren’t just abstract concepts—they were embedded in scientific discourse, travel writing, and the visual culture of the time.

Shakespeare’s plays reflect these cultural currents. In The Tempest, the character of Caliban—described as savage, deformed, and barely human—embodies the fears and fantasies that haunted early modern encounters with the so-called “New World.” Davies unpacks how Caliban’s portrayal draws on the same ways of thinking that labeled certain people monstrous and how Shakespeare’s work offers a lens into the period’s views on race, colonialism, and imagination.

As we confront new technologies like artificial intelligence, Davies helps us consider what today’s “monstrous others” might be and how early modern ways of thinking linger in our discussions of what it means to be human.

Dr. Surekha Davies is a British author, speaker, and historian of science, art, and ideas. Her first book, Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human, won the Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best first book in intellectual history from the Journal of the History of Ideas and the Roland H. Bainton Prize in History and Theology. She has published essays and book reviews about the histories of biology, anthropology, and monsters in the Times Literary Supplement, Nature, Science, and Aeon.

From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published April 8, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

Judith Shakespeare’s life is a mystery. While history records her as the younger daughter of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, much of her story remains untold. In her new novel, The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter, author and Shakespeare scholar Grace Tiffany brings Judith to life—filling in the gaps with adventure, resilience, and rebellion.

A sequel to My Father Had a Daughter, this novel follows Judith into later adulthood. No longer the headstrong girl who once fled to London in disguise to challenge her father, she is now a skilled healer and midwife. However, when she is accused of witchcraft, she must escape Stratford and navigate a world where Puritans have closed playhouses, civil war splits England, and even her father’s legacy is at risk.

Tiffany explores how she merged fact and fiction to reimagine Judith’s life. From the real-life scandal that shook her marriage to the theatrical and political disturbances of her time, the author examines what it means to write historical fiction—and how Shakespeare’s life and legacy continue to inspire new stories.

Grace Tiffany is a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama at Western Michigan University. She has also taught Shakespeare at Fordham University, the University of New Orleans, and the University of Notre Dame, where she obtained her doctorate. She is also the author of My Father Had a Daughter and The Turquoise Ring.

From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published March 25, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.