Shakespeare's Richard was my first input, but I read Kendell's bio very young, and it is very much in the Ricardian camp. (It is a delightful work, and has a nifty appendix analyzing possible suspects for the murders of the princes.) This is one of my dozen or so favorite biographies (I first read it when I was 8 or so, and liked it despite my anti-Richard sentiments, which, given how strongly the young cling to their prejudices, is a powerful recommendation!) It is, I believe, in the Yale English Monarchs series.
Of the slew of hist-fic which touched on RIII, the only titles I can recall offhand are Tudor Rose (which focuses on Richard's niece, Elizabeth), Song of the Thrush (Clarence's kids), and Sprig of Broom... I know there were so many more, but as a kid I never thought to take notes so I could find any of these stories again!
How'd you come across Shakespeare's Richard the III as a kid? It's not one of the ones that usually gets assigned in school, so you must have found it some other way...
Well, I started seeing live Shakespeare plays when I was 6 or so (at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival). We went at least once or twice a year every year thereafter (I missed one year between the first and the year my eldest daughter turned one...).
Although I immersed myself in as much Shakespeare as possible (audio recordings, reading the plays themselves, the BBC televised versions, etc) I had a very strong preference for the historical plays...
The Richard II to RIII cycle was entrancing to me, and I (for what reason I know not) took Margaret of Anjou as my heroine - I can still recite most of her speeches. But despite my loathing for all things Yorkist, Richard fascinated me. He is so evil, but the complexity, the multi-facetedness of his personality are amazing. I think it must be one of the hardest leads to do really well... his vivacity, the way you can know how horrible he is ... and he clearly shows the audience his manipulations, you are still mesmerized by him, and you can see how Anne is drawn to him against her will.
And the language just rolls off the tongue! .. to a child the vivid insults Margaret throws at Richard are so marvelous: "...thou elvish marked abortive rooting hog, thou that wast sealed in thy nativity the slave of nature and the son of hell. Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb, thou loathed issue of thy father's loins, thou rag of honor..."
Long before I reached high school age I had read all the plays multiple times, and seen most of them at least once (I've avoided Titus Andronicus - and plan to continue doing so!).
[Side note: if anyone lives near Seattle and has any interest at all in Shakespeare, you *must* see at least one production at the Seattle Shakespeare Company. I am passionate about my Shakespeare, and have seen more performances than I can easily tally, but I have never seen anything that matches this caliber...
There, you ask a short, simple question and I give you my life story... can you tell that the bulk of my writing time is spent trimming? :)
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Re: part 1 - fantasy and semi-fantasy
Shakespeare's Richard was my first input, but I read Kendell's bio very young, and it is very much in the Ricardian camp. (It is a delightful work, and has a nifty appendix analyzing possible suspects for the murders of the princes.) This is one of my dozen or so favorite biographies (I first read it when I was 8 or so, and liked it despite my anti-Richard sentiments, which, given how strongly the young cling to their prejudices, is a powerful recommendation!) It is, I believe, in the Yale English Monarchs series.
Of the slew of hist-fic which touched on RIII, the only titles I can recall offhand are Tudor Rose (which focuses on Richard's niece, Elizabeth), Song of the Thrush (Clarence's kids), and Sprig of Broom... I know there were so many more, but as a kid I never thought to take notes so I could find any of these stories again!
How'd you come across Shakespeare's Richard the III as a kid? It's not one of the ones that usually gets assigned in school, so you must have found it some other way...
Well, I started seeing live Shakespeare plays when I was 6 or so (at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival). We went at least once or twice a year every year thereafter (I missed one year between the first and the year my eldest daughter turned one...).
Although I immersed myself in as much Shakespeare as possible (audio recordings, reading the plays themselves, the BBC televised versions, etc) I had a very strong preference for the historical plays...
The Richard II to RIII cycle was entrancing to me, and I (for what reason I know not) took Margaret of Anjou as my heroine - I can still recite most of her speeches. But despite my loathing for all things Yorkist, Richard fascinated me. He is so evil, but the complexity, the multi-facetedness of his personality are amazing. I think it must be one of the hardest leads to do really well... his vivacity, the way you can know how horrible he is ... and he clearly shows the audience his manipulations, you are still mesmerized by him, and you can see how Anne is drawn to him against her will.
And the language just rolls off the tongue! .. to a child the vivid insults Margaret throws at Richard are so marvelous: "...thou elvish marked abortive rooting hog, thou that wast sealed in thy nativity the slave of nature and the son of hell. Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb, thou loathed issue of thy father's loins, thou rag of honor..."
Long before I reached high school age I had read all the plays multiple times, and seen most of them at least once (I've avoided Titus Andronicus - and plan to continue doing so!).
[Side note: if anyone lives near Seattle and has any interest at all in Shakespeare, you *must* see at least one production at the Seattle Shakespeare Company. I am passionate about my Shakespeare, and have seen more performances than I can easily tally, but I have never seen anything that matches this caliber...
There, you ask a short, simple question and I give you my life story... can you tell that the bulk of my writing time is spent trimming? :)
Eliana