Dark Lady

The intoxicating richness of the vocabulary, Baldwin's poetic flair and his delight in puns and double entendres at times attain a near-Shakespearean quality (LITERARY REVIEW)

What impresses... is Baldwin's ingenious language (INDEPENDENT)

Accomplished and wholly credible (SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY)

His grasp of the period with its stink and squalor, its cruelty and spirituality is superb (BIRMINGHAM POST)

Historical 'faction' in the manner of THE FIRST MRS WORDSWORTH, though probably with a great deal more poetic licence, DARK LADY tells the story of Emilia Lanier, who was the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets. Mistress of the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hunsdon, at the court of Elizabeth I, Emilia was a poet in her own right and, despite the precariousness of life at Court, particularly for an unmarried woman, she was a resourceful survivor - many said because she dabbled with the Black Arts. Richly evoking the colourful and sometimes brutal age in which she lived, Michael Baldwin tells how Emilia enchanted the young poet William Shakespeare, while at the same time fending off her often murderous protector Lord Hunsdon, and romancing with the Earl of Southampton. Using sorcery and female cunning, she managed to outlive her enemies at Court and emerge triumphant - as well as immortalised by her most ardent lover.