Listen free for 30 days
-
Hamnet
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Daisy Donovan
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $35.09
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Buy it with
-
The Marriage Portrait
- Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt, Maggie O'Farrell
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Moderna and Regio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.
-
-
Amazing
- By m on 2023-01-09
Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
-
The Wreckage
- Written by: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: Mary Lewis
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote Newfoundland outpost at the onset of the Second World War, the young Catholic Wish Furey meets the passionate, independent 16-year-old Protestant Sadie Parsons. They begin an intense affair that is cut short as prejudice and mistrust drive Wish away, into the British Army and the war. At home in Newfoundland, Sadie turns her back on her family and moves to St. John's to wait for Wish - until she receives word that he is dead. Fifty years later, Sadie returns to Newfoundland to scatter her American husband's ashes and to face her past.
-
-
Great performance
- By Georgieanna Dube on 2020-12-31
Written by: Michael Crummey
-
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
- Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Daniela Nardini
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edinburgh in the 1930s. The Lennox family is having trouble with its youngest daughter. Esme is outspoken, unconventional, and repeatedly embarrasses them in polite society. Even Kitty, Esme's beloved sister, is beginning to lose patience. Something will have to be done.
Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
-
Klara and the Sun
- Written by: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Heather Chan on 2021-03-14
Written by: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Innocents
- Written by: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: Mary Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family's boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them.
-
-
The strangest book I have ever read
- By Anonymous User on 2022-01-29
Written by: Michael Crummey
-
A Keeper
- A Novel
- Written by: Graham Norton
- Narrated by: Graham Norton
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother’s death, she’s focused only on saying goodbye to that dark and dismal part of her life. Her childhood home is packed solid with useless junk, her mother’s presence already fading. But within this mess, she discovers a small stash of letters — and ultimately, the truth. Forty years earlier, a young woman stumbles from a remote stone house, the night quiet except for the constant wind that encircles her as she hurries deeper into the darkness away from the cliffs and the sea.
-
-
The best story I’ve ever heard!!
- By Amazon Customer on 2022-03-03
Written by: Graham Norton
-
The Marriage Portrait
- Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt, Maggie O'Farrell
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Moderna and Regio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.
-
-
Amazing
- By m on 2023-01-09
Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
-
The Wreckage
- Written by: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: Mary Lewis
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote Newfoundland outpost at the onset of the Second World War, the young Catholic Wish Furey meets the passionate, independent 16-year-old Protestant Sadie Parsons. They begin an intense affair that is cut short as prejudice and mistrust drive Wish away, into the British Army and the war. At home in Newfoundland, Sadie turns her back on her family and moves to St. John's to wait for Wish - until she receives word that he is dead. Fifty years later, Sadie returns to Newfoundland to scatter her American husband's ashes and to face her past.
-
-
Great performance
- By Georgieanna Dube on 2020-12-31
Written by: Michael Crummey
-
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
- Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Daniela Nardini
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edinburgh in the 1930s. The Lennox family is having trouble with its youngest daughter. Esme is outspoken, unconventional, and repeatedly embarrasses them in polite society. Even Kitty, Esme's beloved sister, is beginning to lose patience. Something will have to be done.
Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
-
Klara and the Sun
- Written by: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Heather Chan on 2021-03-14
Written by: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Innocents
- Written by: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: Mary Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family's boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them.
-
-
The strangest book I have ever read
- By Anonymous User on 2022-01-29
Written by: Michael Crummey
-
A Keeper
- A Novel
- Written by: Graham Norton
- Narrated by: Graham Norton
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother’s death, she’s focused only on saying goodbye to that dark and dismal part of her life. Her childhood home is packed solid with useless junk, her mother’s presence already fading. But within this mess, she discovers a small stash of letters — and ultimately, the truth. Forty years earlier, a young woman stumbles from a remote stone house, the night quiet except for the constant wind that encircles her as she hurries deeper into the darkness away from the cliffs and the sea.
-
-
The best story I’ve ever heard!!
- By Amazon Customer on 2022-03-03
Written by: Graham Norton
-
A Town Called Solace
- Written by: Mary Lawson
- Narrated by: Maggie Huculak, Tajja Isen, Ian Lake
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Town Called Solace, the brilliant and emotionally radiant new novel from Mary Lawson, her first in nearly a decade, opens on a family in crisis. Sixteen-year-old Rose is missing. Angry and rebellious, she had a row with her mother, stormed out of the house and simply disappeared. Left behind is seven-year-old Clara, Rose’s adoring little sister. Isolated by her parents’ efforts to protect her from the truth, Clara is bewildered and distraught.
-
-
What a lovely story
- By Beth Toly on 2021-02-24
Written by: Mary Lawson
-
The Hand That First Held Mine
- Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the bohemian, sophisticated Innes Kent turns up by chance on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realises she cannot wait any longer for her life to begin, and leaves for London. There, at the heart of the 1950s Soho art scene, she carves out a new life for herself, with Innes at her side. In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child.
Written by: Maggie O'Farrell
-
The Way the Crow Flies
- Written by: Ann-Marie MacDonald
- Narrated by: Ann-Marie MacDonald
- Length: 29 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Way the Crow Flies, Ann-Marie MacDonald takes us back to the early 1960’s, a time of optimism infused with the excitement of the space race and overshadowed by the menace of the Cold War—a world filtered through the imagination of Madeleine McCarthy, a spirited nine-year-old. Unaware that her father, Jack, is caught up in his own web of secrets, she at first welcomes her family’s posting to a sleepy air force base in southern Ontario.
-
-
Bearing Witness
- By Mercy on 2022-10-05
Written by: Ann-Marie MacDonald
-
Fayne
- A Novel
- Written by: Ann-Marie MacDonald
- Narrated by: Ann-Marie MacDonald
- Length: 30 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late nineteenth century, Charlotte Bell is growing up at Fayne, a vast and lonely estate straddling the border between England and Scotland, where she has been kept from the world by her adoring father, Lord Henry Bell, owing to a mysterious condition. Charlotte, strong and insatiably curious, revels in the moorlands, and has learned the treacherous and healing ways of the bog. When Charlotte’s appetite for learning threatens to exceed the bounds of the estate, her father breaks with tradition and hires a tutor to teach his daughter “as you would my son, had I one.”
-
-
So rich in detail!
- By samONT on 2022-10-28
Written by: Ann-Marie MacDonald
-
The Power
- Written by: Naomi Alderman
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh, Naomi Alderman, Thomas Judd, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'She throws her head back and pushes her chest forward and lets go a huge blast right into the centre of his body. The rivulets and streams of red scarring run across his chest and up around his throat. She'd put her hand on his heart and stopped him dead.' Suddenly - tomorrow or the day after - girls find that with a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death.
-
-
This book made me proud to be a woman
- By Launa J Amey on 2019-01-23
Written by: Naomi Alderman
-
Band of Sisters
- A Novel
- Written by: Lauren Willig
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A group of young women from Smith College risk their lives in France at the height of World War I in this sweeping novel based on a true story - a skillful blend of Call the Midwife and The Alice Network - from New York Times best-selling author Lauren Willig.
-
-
unbelievably great
- By Mandy Melnyk on 2022-06-28
Written by: Lauren Willig
-
The Good Wife of Bath
- A Novel
- Written by: Karen Brooks
- Narrated by: Fran Burgoyne
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1364: When married off at aged twelve to an elderly farmer, brazen redheaded Eleanor quickly realizes it won’t matter what she says or does, God is not on her side—or any poor woman’s for that matter. But then again, Eleanor was born under the joint signs of Venus and Mars, making her both a lover and a fighter.
-
-
A fun, brave, and brilliant piece of work
- By Erin M. Naef on 2022-10-11
Written by: Karen Brooks
-
The Signature of All Things
- A Novel
- Written by: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 21 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker - a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia.
-
-
Beautiful story
- By Bev Holdgate on 2018-02-25
Written by: Elizabeth Gilbert
-
Pandora's Jar
- Women in the Greek Myths
- Written by: Natalie Haynes
- Narrated by: Natalie Haynes
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Pandora’s Jar, the broadcaster, writer, stand-up comedian, and passionate classicist turns the tables, putting the women of the Greek myths on an equal footing with the men. With wit, humor, and savvy, Haynes revolutionizes our understanding of epic poems, stories, and plays, resurrecting them from a woman’s perspective and tracing the origins of their mythic female characters.
-
-
Fan freaking tasting
- By loralou on 2023-05-19
Written by: Natalie Haynes
-
The One-in-a-Million Boy
- Written by: Monica Wood
- Narrated by: Chris Ciulla
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years, guitarist Quinn Porter has been on the road, chasing gig after gig, largely absent to his twice-ex-wife Belle and their odd, Guinness records-obsessed son. When the boy dies suddenly, Quinn seeks forgiveness for his paternal shortcomings by completing the requirements for one of his son's unfinished Boy Scout badges. For seven Saturdays Quinn does yard work for Ona Vitkus, the spry 104-year-old Lithuanian immigrant the boy had visited weekly.
-
-
I loved this book!
- By SusieQue on 2019-06-21
Written by: Monica Wood
-
Transcription
- A Novel
- Written by: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
-
-
Excellent
- By Listener on 2018-10-17
Written by: Kate Atkinson
-
Still Life
- Written by: Sarah Winman
- Narrated by: Sarah Winman
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses's life for the next four decades.
-
-
Very Beautiful Story
- By Vera on 2022-11-24
Written by: Sarah Winman
Publisher's Summary
2021 British Book Award - Fiction Book of the Year
2021 Dalkey Literary Awards - Novel of the Year
2020 Irish Novel of the Year
2020 National Book Critics Circle Awards
2021 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
2020 Women's Prize for Fiction
New York Times best seller
"[An] exceptional winner.... It expresses something profound about the human experience that seems both extraordinarily current and at the same time, enduring." (Martha Lane Fox, chair of the Women's Prize for Fiction judges)
Two extraordinary people. A love that draws them together. A plague that threatens to tear them apart.
England, 1580. A young Latin tutor - penniless, bullied by a violent father - falls in love with an eccentric young woman: a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people, but once she settles on the Henley Street in Stratford she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband. His gifts as a writer are just beginning to awaken when their beloved twins, Hamnet and Judith, are afflicted with the bubonic plague, and, devastatingly, one of them succumbs to the illness.
A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a hypnotic recreation of the story that inspired one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time, Hamnet & Judith is mesmerizing and seductive, an impossible-to-pause novel from one of our most gifted writers.
Published as Hamnet in the US and the UK.
What the critics say
"Hamnet & Judith is a beautiful read, a devastating one, intricate, and breathtakingly imaginative. It will stay with me a long time." (Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry)
"What could be more common, over centuries and continents, than the death of a child - and yet Maggie O’Farrell, with her flawless sentences and furious heart, somehow makes it new. This story of remarkable people bereft of their boy will leave you shaking with loss but also the love from which family is spun." (Emma Donoghue, author of Room)
"Love, grief, hope, resilience - the world of this novel is so vivid I could nearly smell the grass in the fields, hear the rain in the gutters. In moments where the story shoots up to heaven I was there, too, grieving with these characters, feeling how lucky we all are to be alive, understanding how desperately we want the people we love to be remembered. It’s without a doubt one of the best novels I’ve ever read." (Mary Beth Keane, author of Ask Again, Yes)
Featured Article: Historical Fiction Listens with Strong and Inspiring Female Protagonists
History teaches us what happened; historical fiction novels let us feel what happened. Without female protagonists in these historical fiction books, we’re only getting half the picture of what it might have been like to live through different time periods. Whether it’s a historical romance set hundreds of years ago or a twentieth-century drama based on actual events, discover listens that are both heartbreaking and humbling as female characters lead the way.
More from the same
What listeners say about Hamnet
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Eric Gozna
- 2020-09-25
Amazing
This is one of the best novels I’ve ever read...and I think that it has some historical elements makes it even more fascination. The Raiders voice is captivating and I enjoyed her voice more than I would just reading the book. I could not stop listening to this book. Description and language is mesmerizing.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- andrew
- 2021-01-24
Hamnet versus Hamlet
Dual timeline story of historical fiction that speculates on the life of Hamnet Shakespeare and the events surrounding his life and death. Interesting that the the father is never referred to as Will or Shakespeare. The mother is Agnes but the surname Hathaway never comes up. It becomes clear later if you hadn't already realized from other clues. Scholars have argued about the origin of the name of the Prince and it may or may not be from the boy's name. Overall I found the way the author describes people or places a little trying (his face, his hands , his hair etc. often in threes). The story is an intriguing one and may have been better told in a linear fashion although the dual timeline method helps contrast the birth of the twins and the death of one of them for example. The sudden diversion into a bubonic plague flea journey was a bit like being kidnapped by aliens in the middle of the book although I enjoyed the explanation of how the black death might have been spread around by travel in those days and of course very evocative of our own pandemic times .
I was disappointed by the narrator who had a way too posh BBC accent for my taste. Her attempted voices for some characters, if we can extrapolate from current local accents in the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire area ,were inaccurate, more like a generic northern twang for Bartholomew to give one example.
Certainly no Hilary Mantell but nevertheless an interesting take on a historical mystery and another Hamlet spin off although I prefer the absurd approach of Stoppard. No idea why the book is titled Hamnet in the UK and Hamnet and Judith in North America.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 2020-08-20
Best Book of the Summer
I loved this book - cover to cover... It is tragic and fanciful... a little bit magical... It is about grief and loss and redemption - parental love and the courage to embrace the change left by death... It is about a woman of strength and wisdom... It is worth every minute!!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sonia hughes
- 2020-08-20
Excellent!
Rich text...beautifully performed. As an English teacher it is hard to please me. This novel and performance did not disappoint!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Laura
- 2022-08-20
Incredible story!
the writer has such an incredible style with detail so touching that you feel the event going on in front of your eyes. The narrator is exceptional too. I think the two of them make a beautiful pair. The narrator is soft and has so much feeling in the way she expresses the story that again it is so believable. This is indeed one of the very very best books I have ever heard!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MM
- 2020-10-03
Enchanting
I loved how the author engaged the senses in her description of life in the 1600s. It was a vivid, poetic, moving story. Really enjoyed the narration as well.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amanda
- 2023-05-20
Beautiful
An absolutely beautiful and breathtaking novel. Beautifully written and fantastic narrator! Would highly recommend! Could not put it down.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sheryl
- 2023-05-12
Highly Descriptive
Fantastic narration.
Lots of description that demonstrated depth of the characters.
I would recommend highly.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2023-03-15
👍🏻
really enjoyed the narrator
story started slow for me but came around at then end and really enjoyed
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- K Mac
- 2023-03-07
Absolutely superb!
Superb narration, I will be seeking more from her. All other performances have now become subpar in comparison.
Absolutely brilliant story as well. The detail, the raw emotion it evoked, will stay with me.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Karen
- 2022-12-20
Amazing
This is an incredible book. Heartbreakingly beautiful and true to our deepest emotions. I’ll be listening to this again.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 2020-12-08
Amazing!
This may be my favorite book of all time. The writing was stunning and the story beautiful. The narrator was perfect.