The Reader’s Companion to The Death of Shakespeare

The Death of Shakespeare imagines how the plays and poetry attributed to William Shakespeare were written. Unlike the outpourings of contemporary biographies about Shakespeare, the novel is based mainly on fact. Since it is not customary to add footnotes or endnotes to works of fiction, the Reader’s Companion tracks the chapters in The Death of Shakespeare and explains what is supported in the historical record and what is not. In essence, the Reader’s Companion is an ancilla, literally an aid. Jon Benson could say, as did Moses Hadas in the introduction to his Ancilla to Classical Reading (Columbia University Press, 1954): Long preoccupation with a subject begets curiosity about matters essentially peripheral or even irrelevant to its main issues, and I have thought that others interested in ancient books might enjoy such partial satisfaction of similar curiosity as I am able to offer. The Reader’s Companion has two sections: the first identifies the principal sources used by the author in writing The Death of Shakespeare, and the second provides facts of note germane to the novel.