Hamnet cover art

Hamnet

Listen to the bestselling novel before you see the award winning film

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Hamnet

By: Maggie O'Farrell
Narrated by: Jessie Buckley
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

 **LISTEN TO HAMNET STAR JESSIE BUCKLEY'S UNFORGETTABLE NEW RECORDING BEFORE YOU SEE THE FILM**

'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times
'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell

TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.

On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.

Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week.

Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.

WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021
WINNER: WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER: FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR, BRITISH BOOK AWARDS
WINNER: BOOKS ARE MY BAG READER'S CHOICE AWARD
AS FEATURED ON BBC2'S BETWEEN THE COVERS
SHORTLISTED: AN POST IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR, WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION©2020 Maggie O'Farrell Biographical Fiction Family Life Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Renaissance Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Hamnet cover art
Jane Austen: The 250th Anniversary Collection cover art
The Housemaid cover art
All the Sonnets of Shakespeare cover art
You'll Never Know cover art
The Bright Years cover art
The Poisonwood Bible cover art

Critic reviews

Stunning. The writing is exquisite, immersive and compelling... deserves to win prizes
The story of Hamnet Shakespeare has been waiting in the shadows for over four hundred years. Maggie O'Farrell brings it dazzlingly, devastatingly, into the light
Grief and loss so finely written I could hardly bear to read it
Heartstopping. Hamnet does for the Shakespeare story what Jean Rhys did for Jane Eyre, inhabiting, enlarging and enriching it in ways that will alter the reader's view for ever
Blisteringly brilliant... You'll lap up this intricately told story of grief, love and the bond between twins
[A] rich imagining of the lives of Shakespeare's family enchants... O'Farrell's remarkable novel bursts with life
A beautiful read. A devastating one. Intricate, and breathtakingly imaginative
A bold undertaking. Beautifully imagined and written
Richly sensuous...something special
The novel of her career... everyone I know who has managed to get hold of a copy is absolutely in love with it
A staggeringly beautiful and unbearably poignant novel. O'Farrell is one of the most surprisingly quiet radicals in fiction
All stars
Most relevant
I had already read the book, and listened to the original audiobook but wanted to hear it again read by Jessie in the lead up to the film release.

The book is of course similarly heart warming and wrenching as it was, but through Jessie’s performance it is transcended. I felt the maternal joy and anguish in equal measure in the pit of my stomach.

It is so moving I don’t have the vocabulary to explain the effect it has had on me. I’ve become obsessed with the film and am counting down the days for the imagery in my mind to be transported to the screen.

A wondrous book transcended to a further level through a new performance.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It was so well written I felt as if I lived in Stratford amongst them all.

Beautifully written and narrated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully written story. Only negative for me was that I sometimes found it difficult in Part 1 with the intertwining stories to know who I was with.

Gorgeous Audiobook

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was gripped from the very first sentence. Jessie Buckley is an amazing narrator, she brought the text to life and her emotions at times were shattering. One of the best books and audio books I’ve had the pleasure to indulge in, though not without tears.

Simply Stunning

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This makes me want to hold my babies closer. This was such an incredible tale of how loss can rip at your very core, and yet, in that loss there is love, and in that love is always hope.

Profoundly moving

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews