In 1590s Stratford-upon-Avon, a forest-raised healer named Agnes builds a life with a restless Latin tutor, their daughter Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith — while he chases a future on London's stages. In the summer of 1596, plague reaches an ordinary English door. Maggie O'Farrell's Women's Prize-winning novel is a sensory portrait of marriage, motherhood, and a boy whose short life would lend its name to a play. A 2025 film followed; this kit is for the book.
“Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicentre, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns.”