Hamnet: Extraordinary Tudor Lives

with Lynn Robson and Janet Dickinson

in collaboration with the Oxford Preservation Trust

In Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell’s skill and imagination make the ordinary truly extraordinary. Telling the stories of women and children – Annis, Hamnet, Judith and Susanna – she brings history’s ‘walk-on’ parts to the centre of the stage. Using Hamnet as their inspiration, Janet Dickinson and Lynn Robson weave together historical records, literature, and art to explore the extraordinary lives of ‘ordinary’ Tudor people.  This informal discussion will be taking place in Oxford’s hidden gem – The Painted Room – the Oxford place where Shakespeare slept.

Back by popular demand, the historico-literary duo return to the festival stage. 

Dr Janet Dickinson is Senior Associate Tutor in History at Oxford University’s Department for Continuing education and Lecturer for New York University in London.  Her research focuses on the nobility and the court in early modern England and Europe. Janet has recently worked on a collection of ‘drowned books’ from a seventeenth century shipwreck and what they can tell us about travel and cultural exchange.

Dr Lynn Robson is Tutorial Fellow in English Literature and Dean of Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford.  Her research interests are in early modern print culture, particularly cheap print. Lynn’s initial research into prose murder pamphlets of the period is developing to encompass prison literature: writing from and about the early modern prison, with a concentration on the depiction of penitence.