Shakespeare retold: Did you know about the Hogarth Shakespeare series?

While reading the lovely blog of Nirmala from Red Lips and Bibliomaniacs, I was intrigued by something she wrote in the review of Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood: “I was very excited when I first heard about the Hogarth Shakespeare project, where modern writers create novels inspired by Shakespeare’s plays“. How is that I haven’t heard of this amazing project before?

Deep down in my bookish soul I’ve been wanting to read Shakespeare’s stories for a long time. However, I am discouraged to read the originals because the language is quite difficult and I also consider I would not have the necessary literary knowledge to actually appreciate Shakespeare’s work.

In the meantime, I read the posts of Amy from Curiouser and Curiouser. Amy has an entire blogging series – Shakespeare Saturdays – where she writes about Shakespeare in a very understandable language (and I mean this as a compliment).

With the Hogarth Shakespeare series I might have an additional way of discovering the Shakespearean stories.

The Hogarth Shakespeare project “sees Shakespeare’s works retold by acclaimed and bestselling novelists of today”. In a nutshell, it is a series of 8 books (7 are already published, 8th will be published in 2021) written by contemporary writers. Each author chooses a famous story by Shakespeare and writes a book with that specific theme.

I find it so exciting that well-known contemporary authors write retellings of Shakespeare’s stories! Margaret Atwood and Tracy Chevalier are authors that I read before and I enjoyed a lot their books (“The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Girl with a Pearl Earring“). The other authors are new to me … for now 🙂