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Little, Brown has paid a five-figure sum for a fictional account of William Shakespeare as he writes a play that never existed in reality - that of the founder of the Tudor line, Henry VII.
Editorial director Richard Beswick secured UK and Commonwealth rights to The Final Act of Shakespeare by Robert Winder, former literary editor of the Independent, via his agent Toby Eady. The book will be published in hardback March 2010, with Abacus publishing the paperback later that year.
The novel opens in 1613, 10 years after the end of the Tudor dynasty and eight years after the Gunpowder Plot, from which “the city is still recoiling". A retired Shakespeare returns to London to write the play he never could, which would have sat between his Henry VI and Henry VIII, while Elizabeth I was on the throne.
As well as setting the political and historical context in which Shakespeare lived, the novel includes the entire play as it might have been written.
Beswick described the novel as "incredibly daring", “audacious" and "clever". He explained: "Robert achieves his ambition of realising the character of Shakespeare and also a very brilliant evocation of the uncertain and dangerous times he was writing in . . . Then to actually write the play that Shakespeare might have written if he had been politically able is incredible."
Beswick added the book would appeal to readers of Rose Tremain and Hillary Mantell. "The market is looking for books that really have a point of difference, something really original at heart. This book has that in spades."