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.
