Shakespeare References in Sarah Shankman’s Now Let’s Talk Of Graves

The title of Sarah Shankman’s mystery novel Now Let’s Talk Of Graves is itself a Shakespeare reference. And the novel opens with the passage from Richard The Second from which the title is taken: “Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;/Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes/Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth;/Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.” That’s a speech from Act III Scene ii, which King Richard says to the Duke of Aumerle.

The book also refers to The Winter’s Tale: “It was quite wonderful, this fantasyland of white and silver, Comus’s theme this year being The Winter’s Tale” (p. 34). And then: “Now the stage was aswirl with scores of masked lords and ladies pantomiming a scene from The Winter’s Tale” (p. 37).

Now Let’s Talk Of Graves was published in 1990.