Exclusive interview with author Zoe Bramley and a review of her new book about Shaksepeare destinations
Rating: 4 Stars
Review by Gabrielle Pantera
“In 2010 I decided to train as one of the official City of London Tour Guides so I could show people around Shakespeare’s favorite haunts,” says The Shakespeare Trail author Zoe Bramley. “It was great fun, but I moved away to Brighton. One day I happened to be flicking through a book of London walks when I got the idea of writing a book of my own. I’ve always loved Shakespeare.”
Like any good tour guide, Bramley provides sparkling descriptions with engaging anecdotes and facts. The book has three parts, like a play. Act One is set in Warwickshire and covers Shakespeare’s youth. Act Two is centered on London with Shakespeare’s rise to fame. Act Three is a journey into Shakspeare’s imagination and a visit to places mentioned in his plays. Bramley’s book is not only for anyone who loves Shakespeare, it’s for anyone who loves to hear all the details about the UK. You’ll learn many things you didn’t know. There’s really no book it compares to. I wish there was a book like this about my favorite author, Jane Austen.
“It was so much fun visiting places such as the birthplace in Stratford, Charlecote House, the Tower of London, Bosworth Field, and Shakespeare’s Globe,” says Bramley. “My original Shakespeare Trail walking tour is included in its entirety. It starts near St Paul’s Cathedral where the Elizabethan book trade was centered and wends its way through the ancient streets of the City of London, past places such as the Roman wall, the medieval Guildhall and the remains of Blackfriars. Along the way we see the site of his lodgings at Silver Street where he lived with a family of French Huguenot refugees, as well as the site of the Blackfriars Playhouse and a pub which stands on the site of a house he built there.”
Bramley also includes a self-guided walking tour of Southwark that explores the Globe, the Rose, Southwark Cathedral where Shakespeare’s brother Edmund is buried, and London’s last remaining galleried coaching inn. For those venturing up to Warwickshire, there is a self-guided tour of Stratford. “I hope the book manages to tempt people into exploring some of these locations themselves,” says Bramley.
“The Shakespeare Trail is my first book on Shakespeare,” says Bramley. She had contributed an article to a visitors guilde to Anne Boleyn locations released by Amberley Publishing. “I dashed off an email with a brief proposal and was over the moon to have the book accepted.”
Bramley researched Shakespeare’s life and times, spending a lot of time researching the history of the buildings covered in the book. “During the course of my research I got to speak to some incredibly interesting people including one of the heralds at the College of Arms,” says Bramley. “Shakespeare applied there for his coat of arms, so I had a remarkable chat with a gentleman there whose official title is Lancaster Herald. It’s all very medieval and chivalric.”
Bramley contributes to the popular Anne Boleyn blog On the Tudor Trail. She’s written for Shakespeare Magazine. Her editor Clare Owen at Amberley suggested writing about William Shakespeare in a 100 Facts format, a book Bramley has just finished writing. She is now writing a book of historical fiction and considering writing a third Shakespeare book.
It’s been 400 years this year since The Bard passed away. Historical documents show that Shakespeare was baptised on April 26th, 1564 at Stratford-upon-Avon at the Holy Trinity Church in Warwickshire, and at age 18 married Anne Hathaway with whom he had three children. Few personal biographical facts are known about him because of the low regard and general lack of interest at the time in the personal lives of writers. Unlike today, there was no column like this to interview writers and review their books.
Bramley lives in London and can be found on Twitter @shakespearewalk
The Shakespeare Trail: A Journey into Shakespeare’s England by Zoe Bramley. Hardcover: 304 pages, Publisher: Amberley (December 19, 2015), Language: English. ISBN: 9781445646848, $34.95
