Dark Aemilia Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Who Was Shakespeare's Dark Lady? and our BookBrowse Review of Dark Aemilia.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

About this Book

Dark Aemilia is the story of a real woman who overcame adversity to become the first female poet to be published professionally in England. The action takes place in the uncertain period at the end of the reign of Elizabeth I and the beginning of Stuart rule. London is violent and fraught with danger, but also a magnet for anyone who wants to succeed and pursue their dreams.

Aemilia falls in love with William Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of all time, but she also has ambitions for her own work. And when her son Henry is born, her love for him makes her all the more determined to impose her will on a world that sees women as the servants and sexual playthings of men. But who are the three sinister women that she meets at Bartholomew Fair, the greatest fair in England, and why do they want to harm her?

Dark Aemilia dramatizes the conflicts between love and ambition and the ways in which women have had to fight for the right to express their feelings in art, and in life.



Discussion Questions:

1. Aemilia fights for her right to be taken seriously as a writer, and she challenges authority at the very highest level. She is also contemptuous of some of the men she meets. Would you call her a feminist?
2. Aemilia has four lovers in this story. How much say does she have in this? And do you think there are choices that she makes that are unwise, or immoral?
3. Aemilia is clearly an ambitious woman, and this drives some of her actions. Do you think she goes too far? How do her actions relate to the story of Macbeth? Which of the characters in the story "overreach," as Faust and Macbeth do? What other references to the play Macbeth are there in the novel?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Picador. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.