书名：The Shakespeare Stealer 
作者：Gary Blackwood
出版社名称：Puffin
出版时间：2000
语种：英文 
ISBN：9780141305950
商品尺寸：13 x 1.5 x 19.7 cm
包装：平装
页数：224 （以实物为准）

The Shakespeare Stealer是一部以伊丽莎白时代的英国为背景的小说，讲述了孤儿Widge是一个速记天才，被大师要求去“窃取莎士比亚的戏剧《哈姆雷特》”，却在这个过程中意外收获了友谊与忠诚的故事。全书幽默风趣，富有戏剧性，值得反复阅读。

A delightful adventure full of humor and heart set in Elizabethan England!
Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. His fearsome master has just one demand: steal Shakespeare's play "Hamlet"--or else. Widge has no choice but to follow orders, so he works his way into the heart of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's players perform. As full of twists and turns as a London alleyway, this entertaining novel is rich in period details, colorful characters, villainy, and drama.

Review
"Excels in the lively depictions of Elizabethan stagecraft and street life,"--Publisher's Weekly

"A fast-moving historical novel that introduces an important era with casual familiarity." --School Library Journal

"Readers will find much to like in Widge, and plenty to enjoy in this gleeful romp through olde England"--Kirkus Reviews

Gary Blackwood sold his first story when he was nineteen, and has been writing and publishing stories, articles, plays, novels, and nonfiction books regularly ever since. His stage plays have won awards and been produced in university and regional theatre. Nonfiction subjects he's covered include biography, history, and paranormal phenomena. His juvenile novels, which include WILD TIMOTHY, THE DYING SUN, and THE SHAKESPEARE STEALER, are set in a wide range of times and places, from Elizabethan England to a parallel universe. Several have received special recognition and been translated into other languages. He lives near Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia.

I never knew my mother or my father. As reliably as I can learn, my mother died the same year I was born, the year of our Lord 1587, the twenty-ninth of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.
The name I earned with me throughout my youth was attached to me, more or less accidentally, by Mistress MacGregor of the orphanage. I was placed in her care by some neighbor. When she saw how small and frail I was, she exclaimed “Och, the poor little pigwidgeon!” From that unfortunate expression came the appellation of Widge, which stuck to me for years, like pitch. It might have been worse, of course. They might have called me Pig.
Of my life at the orphanage, I have made it a habit to recall as little as possible. The long and short of it is, it was an institution, and institutions are governed by expediency. Mistress MacGregor was not a bad woman, just an overburdened one. Occasionally she lost her temper and beat one of us, but for the most part we were not mistreated so much as neglected.
The money given us by the parish was not enough to keep one child properly clothed and fed, let alone six or seven. We depended mostly upon charity. When someone felt charitable, our bellies were relatively full. Otherwise, we dined on barley mush and wild greens. When times were hard for others, they were doubly so for us.
It was the dream of each child within those dreary walls that someday a real family would come and claim him. Preferably it would be his true parents—who were, of course, royalty—but any set would do. Or so we thought.
When I was seven years of age, my prospects changed, as some say they do every seven years of a person’s life— the grand climateric, I have heard it called. That orphan’s dream suddenly became a reality for me.
The rector from the nearby hamlet of Berwick came looking for an apprentice and, thanks to Mistress MacGregor’s praise, settled on me. The man’s name was Dr. Timothy Bright. His title was not a religious one but a medical one. He had studied physick at Cambridge and practiced in the city of London before coming north to Yorkshire.
Naturally I was grateful and eager to please. I did readily whatever was asked of me, and at first it seemed I had been very fortunate. Dr. Bright and his wife were not affectionate toward me—nor, indeed, toward their own children. But they gaveme a comfortable place to sleep at one end of the apothecary, the room where the doctor prepared his medicines and infusions.