Rosalind: Shakespeare's immortal heroine

A unique biography exploring Shakespeare’s iconic Rosalind, heroine of As You Like It, seen through the eyes of the artists who have brought her to life.

Into the spotlight steps Rosalind, from As You Like It. She's alive. She’s modern. She's also a fiction.

Played by a boy actor in 1599, Rosalind is a girl who gets into men's clothes so that she can investigate the truth about love. Both male and female, imaginary and real, her intriguing duality gives her a special role.

This book is for everyone who has ever loved Shakespeare. Rosalind, his most innovative heroine, can never die. There is no clock in the Forest of Arden where Rosalind finds herself and applies her mercurial wit to teach her lover, Orlando, how to become her perfect partner, issues which consume men and women today.

This highly original biography of Rosalind contains exclusive new interviews with Juliet Rylance, Sally Scott, Janet Suzman, Juliet Stevenson, Michelle Terry, award-winning director Blanche McIntyre, as well as insights from Michael Attenborough, Kenneth Branagh, Greg Doran, Rebecca Hall, Adrian Lester, Pippa Nixon, Vanessa Redgrave, and Fiona Shaw.

Exploring the fictitious life and the many after-lives of Rosalind, Angela Thirwell delves into the character’s perennial influence on drama, fiction and art. For any fan of the theater, this book ranges far and wide across the Elizabethan world, sexual politics, autobiography, and filmography, bringing Shakespeare's immortal heroine to new and vivid life.