Print List Price:	$17.95
Kindle Price:	$7.99 Save $9.96 (55%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Black and Deep Desires: William Shakespeare, Vampire Hunter by [Graham Holderness]

Follow the Author

Graham Holderness

Black and Deep Desires: William Shakespeare, Vampire Hunter Kindle Edition

by Graham Holderness (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 13 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$7.99

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$13.78

$11.19

$8.15

Kindle
$7.99 Read with Our Free App
Paperback
$13.78

5 Used from $8.15 14 New from $11.19

Who was the real architect of the Gunpowder Plot? Who was the first person to wear a Guy Fawkes mask? Why was Shakespeare’s Dark Lady dark? These and many other questions are answered in Graham Holderness’s new novel, which combines historical fiction, psychological mystery and supernatural thriller in a highly original and imaginative re-telling of the Gunpowder Plot. It is 1604. The Gunpowder Plotters are tunnelling under the palace of Westminster, and confront an immovable obstacle. Guy Fawkes travels to Europe to fetch help, and brings back more than he bargained for. Who is the mysterious Dark Lady? Who is the man in the mask? Why is London over-run by a plague of vampires, and who is going to defeat them? From a Westminster vault to a Transylvanian mine, from the crypt of Lambeth Palace to the under-stage of the Globe theatre, Black and Deep Desires takes the reader on a tour of historical, psychological and mythical underworlds, delving deep into some of history’s unexplored corridors, into the secret thoughts of Catholic terrorists, and into the dark wellsprings of Shakespeare’s poetry. In Black and Deep Desires Graham Holderness combines the expertise of an internationally-recognised Shakespeare scholar, the narrative flair of his 2001 novel The Prince of Denmark, and the poetic sensibility that won his verse collection Craeft a Poetry Book Society award.

Print length

263 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Top Hat Books
Publication date

September 25, 2015
File size

3461 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Graham Holderness is a senior academic and creative writer with over 40 published academic and creative books. He has published two novels; an award-winning collection of poems; and a play performed at Shakespeare's Globe, and by RSC actors in Stratford-upon-Avon. . --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B013TS3MOA
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Top Hat Books (September 25, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 25, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3461 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 263 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #3,914,311 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #7,860 in Alternative History
- #8,127 in Historical British & Irish Literature
- #14,457 in Historical Literary Fiction

Customer Reviews:
4.2 13 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Graham Holderness

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Writer and critic Graham Holderness [grahamholderness@gmail.com] has published over 40 books, many on Shakespeare, and hundreds of chapters and articles of criticism, theory and theology. He was one of the founders of British cultural materialism, and is acknowledged as a formative contributor to a number of branches of Shakespeare criticism and theory. He has published pioneering studies in Arabic adaptations of Shakespeare, culminating in The Arab Shakespeare Trilogy by Sulayman Al Bassam (Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama, 2014).

His more recent work has pioneered methods of critical-creative writing, exemplified by his innovative factual-fictional biography Nine Lives of William Shakespeare (Bloomsbury/Arden Shakespeare, 2011). Extending these methods, and published in 2014, are Tales from Shakespeare: Creative Collisions (Cambridge University Press, June 2014) and Re-writing Jesus: Christ in 20th Century Fiction and Film (Bloomsbury, November 2014). His latest book is The Faith of William Shakespeare (Lion Hudson, 2016).

He is also a novelist, poet and dramatist. Graham Holderness has published two Shakespearean novels: The Prince of Denmark (University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001), and the historical fantasy novel Black and Deep Desires: William Shakespeare Vampire Hunter (Top Hat Books, 2015). His poetry collection Craeft: poems from the Anglo-Saxon received a Poetry Book Society award in 2002; and his play Wholly Writ was in 2011 performed at Shakespeare’s Globe, and by Royal Shakespeare Company actors in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

13 global ratings

5 star		63%
4 star		14%
3 star 0% (0%)		0%
2 star		23%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Joe Crowe

Historical fiction-based fun -- with Shakespeare and vampires!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 1, 2015

This book is really more William Shakespeare than Vampire Hunter. It’s grounded and informed by the political era in Europe in Shakespeare’s lifetime. It has something for the history aficionados, and it has vampire stuff for the vampire fans, if they skip over long passages about British politics.

It’s historical fiction that stars William Shakespeare as a reluctant hero. He is embroiled in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 that intended to blow up the House of Lords. That was a real thing. The author just adds vampires.

This book fashions an adventure out of the stuff we studied in high school. It works in references to Shakespeare’s plays in such a way that I feel as if I am a learned intellectual. Beyond the references and the vampires, it’s a thrilling caper.

The author is a Shakespeare scholar. He’s written books about Shakespeare. He doesn’t have an official record that reveals how much of an authority he is on vampires. But this book is good anyway. (Joe Crowe, http://www.RevolutionSF.com, http://www.twitter.com/RevolutionSF)

Helpful

Amy Partridge

A thrilling, dark and romantic novel

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 29, 2016

A colleague recommended this book to me and I am glad I investigated it. I am a lover of Shakespeare and I am partial to a great vampire tale.
At first glance, it's a strange combination but the author, Graham Holderness, weaves an exciting and fantastical story with a good dose of historical interest and fact. I would describe it as a thrilling, dark and romantic novel. I really enjoyed the author's writing style. Highly recommended. In addition, I looked into the author, and he seems to be a leading academic in the field of Shakespeare.

Helpful

Sinan Akıllı

A Novel that Must Be Watched!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 27, 2016

Graham Holderness does not need any introduction for the Shakespeare-savvy reader, but those aspects of his latest novel that make it a very special work of fiction must definitely be highlighted. On 25 September 2015, only months before the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, Holderness's "historical fantasy" (as he describes his novel) brought the Bard back from the dead as a vampire hunter. On a different descriptive frame, however, it would not be wrong to call Black and Deep Desires a “cinematic novel.” The novel’s diary-like narrative technique, which is obviously a deliberate replication of the epistolary style in Bram Stoker's Dracula, its action, and the vivid imagery Holderness creates in this gripping story provoke comparison not with other fantasy novels but with screen productions. In the way it so naturally brings together the historical, political, and religious context of the Gun Power Plot with Stoker's Dracula, with Shakespeare's own life and works, and with several other well-known literary and historical figures, I think Holderness’s novel belongs in the order of screen productions like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) and the more recent Showtime TV show Penny Dreadful (2014). My natural expectation, therefore, is to see this fascinating novel made into a film in the near future, because it really should.
In case the possible presumption from reading the blurbs is that the novel’s story is a combination of the films Shakespeare in Love (1998) and V for Vendetta (2005), nothing can be further away from what Black and Deeps Desires really is than that presumption. The plot of Holderness's novel is more explosive than Guy Fawkes's plot. In fact, perhaps the best description of this novel is to be found within its own lines: "Some kind of strange and fatal lover's kiss."

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

CrazyHorse

Shakespeare, Vampire hunter?? Read all about it ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 31, 2016

Verified Purchase

Graham Holderness is a well-known Shakespeare scholar and critic with a solid reputation around the world, so he has taken something of a risk in putting Shakespeare together with vampires in this curious hybrid historical novel-fantasy adventure-political thriller. But, against all the odds, it works. Shakespeare, Guy Fawkes, Dracula, the Jesuits, King James I - all have a role to play in this entertaining fantasy. MY favourite is vampire-hunter Simon Forman - a real Elizabethan doctor, astrologer and conjurer - who applies all the dark arts of early modern science to the problem of hunting vampires. Shakespeare and Forman make a great team and the sooner Holderness lets them out again, the better.
Black and Deep Desires: William Shakespeare, Vampire Hunter

One person found this helpful

drAmazon

great read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 9, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a brilliant novel combining glorious narrative invention with rigorous scholarship. Anyone who enjoys Kim Newman or Jasper Fforde should read this. On second thoughts, anyone who has ever seen a Shakespeare play, or attended a Bonfire Night party, or heard of the Gunpowder Plot, should read it. If you’re interested in Shakespeare - seventeenth-century history - or vampires, this is for you. Particularly if you're If you’re also intrigued by the borderlines between life and death, the might-have-beens of alternative history, and the threat of global terrorism.

Amazon Customer

A delightful surprise and a great read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 25, 2016

Verified Purchase

I thoroughly loved this book. It was quite a surprise. I was expecting something along the lines of 'Buffy, the Vampire Slayer' and discovered, instead a very clever historical drama with vampires thrown in. This is so cleverly written that you'll believe that William Shakespeare really did hunt vampires. This would be the perfect book to give to a reluctant Shakespeare student to kick-start an interest in the bard. As a bonus, Holderness also gives us several interesting insights into Shakespeare's works. Well worth the read!

Amazon Customer

Great fun!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 31, 2016

Verified Purchase

We've just learned that Pride and Prejudice is a big cover-up, as Jane Austen never mentions the zombie hordes ravaging England. This novel shows that Shakespeare also spent much of his time fighting the Undead. Apparently the first version of Macbeth was all about vampires, and he changed them to witches to please James I! It's great fun, and the author really knows his stuff.

Amazon Customer

I didn't enjoy Shakespeare at school but I really loved this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 23, 2016

Verified Purchase

I didn't enjoy Shakespeare at school but I really loved this book. It makes Shakespeare funny, exciting, sexy and clever. The book explores the real world of history, so you feel you're learning an imaginary world based on Shakespeare's plays, which turns out to be populated by vampires! If you like true blood, you will love this!

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	6pm Score deals on fashion brands	AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account

Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	Amazon Fresh Groceries & More Right To Your Door	AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally	Home Services Experienced Pros Happiness Guarantee	Amazon Ignite Sell your original Digital Educational Resources	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Listen to Books & Original Audio Performances	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Box Office Mojo Find Movie Box Office Data	ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics	DPReview Digital Photography	Fabric Sewing, Quilting & Knitting

Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Prime Video Direct Video Distribution Made Easy

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Great Deals on Quality Used Products	Whole Foods Market America’s Healthiest Grocery Store	Woot! Deals and Shenanigans	Zappos Shoes & Clothing	Ring Smart Home Security Systems

eero WiFi Stream 4K Video in Every Room	Blink Smart Security for Every Home	Neighbors App Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts	Amazon Subscription Boxes Top subscription boxes – right to your door	PillPack Pharmacy Simplified	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the Author

Black and Deep Desires: William Shakespeare, Vampire Hunter Kindle Edition

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

Graham Holderness

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries