Mary Shakespeare Mary Shakespeare Mary Shakespeare, née Arden, (c. 1537–1608) was the mother of William Shakespeare. She was the daughter of Wilmcote gentleman farmer Robert Arden, a cadet of the Arden family prominent in Warwickshire since before the Norman Conquest. She was the youngest of eight daughters, and when her father died in 1556 she inherited land at Snitterfield and Wilmcote from her father as a dowry. The house was left to her stepmother Agnes Hill. Richard Shakespeare, the father of John Shakespeare, was a tenant farmer on land owned by her father in Snitterfield. As the daughter of Richard's landlord, she
In the Name of the Father (novel) Name of the Father is a carefully woven, sophisticated first novel that avoids sentimentality and self-indulgence."-Jane Larkin Crain of New York Times Book Review "Growing up poor and Catholic in the Chicago of the 1950s and 1960s, Tonto Schwartz, son of an Irish-Catholic mother and a Jewish veteran, goes through schooling with the nuns, friendship, sexual encounters, drinking, and an abortive sojourn in college. Philosophical musings and wrestling with the name his dying father willed him seem to preclude success in work, school, and personal relationships. Following participation in the 1968 Democratic Convention and an accident, Tonto comes to terms