Glorious scurillous fun (and very brave)
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I first read this forty years ago. I am rereading it now and loving every fragile yellowed page. It is filled with witty intelligent humour and insights into the period.
It makes no claims to historicity (in fact it carries this caution: WARNING TO SCHOLARS this book is fundamentally unsound.)I am sorry that one reviewer (Cynical Cash In That Has Authors Spinning in Graves) felt the section on the Armada was overlong, remember it was published in 1941, a time when only Britain stood against the forces of Fascism and faced a daily fear of invasion.
I find it useful to check the publication date of books I read. Perspectives and knowledge change and books reflect the period they were written. This book is a celebration of British culture when reason suggested that that culture was about to be crushed.
Read it as a brave candle shining in a dark night, a candle that burned till dawn.
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Hilarious journey through Elizabethan England
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This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. If you're looking for serious historical fiction, you won't enjoy it; the authors take whatever aspects of Elizabeth I's reign appeal to them, and mix them to make a very funny account of one girl's attempt to become "the greatest girl-boy player in the world". But if you're looking for historical humour, it should suit you down to the ground. And the more you know about that period, the funnier the book is. This book pre-dates Shakespeare in Love by some years, so don't expect to find that story (though either some elements of the film were lifted from the book, or it's a massive coincidence). That is a romance; this is a comedy. I also wish that someone would reprint Brahms and Simon's other books, particularly Don't Mr Disraeli! - similar style to this one but about the Victorian age.
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Great, memorable book
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Slightly spoilt by the inferior 'Shakespeare in Love', I read this donkey's years ago and have never forgotten it. Understated comedy.
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It's alright - it's Shakespeare
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So pleased this will be back in print. Read a borrowed copy years ago and always wanted my own. Parts of the recent film "Shakespeare in Love" were either lifted from it or an homage, depending on your level of charity. Shakespeare spends his time practicising his signature (and varying its spelling) and falling in love with a girl pretending to boy pretending to be a girl. Bacon is trying to get a Gloriana bed (a bed that Elizabeth I has slept in). Like all Brahms & Simon books I've read, this is silly, educated fun. Any publishers out there want to re-print them?...
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