Imagining Shakespeare's Wife

This biography traces the evolving cultural imagination of Anne Hathaway across three centuries of literary and theatrical portrayals, offering a fascinating study of how Shakespeare's wife has been reinvented by each generation. Scheil meticulously documents how biographers, novelists, and playwrights have projected their own anxieties about marriage, gender, and creativity onto the historical void surrounding Hathaway's life, creating a compelling narrative about the creation of cultural myths.

What makes this work particularly valuable is its revelation of how these fictionalized Annes tell us more about their creators' eras than about the historical woman herself. Readers interested in Shakespeare studies, feminist biography, and cultural history will find rich material in this exploration of how absence becomes a canvas for imagination. The book ultimately challenges us to consider why we keep reinventing Hathaway—and what these persistent reimaginings reveal about our own relationship to Shakespeare's legacy.