The Tragedy of the Fair Ophelia, driven mad by the callous Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Kronborg Castle: thanks to Wikimedia 

Title: The Tragedy of the Fair Ophelia, driven mad by the callous Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Author: Hard to say: it ought to be William Shakespeare 

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde 

In this volume of the Thursday Next saga, Hamlet somehow escapes his titular play and lodges with Thursday’s mother who seems to have a very spacious house.

In his absence the other characters have got very uppity. There has already been a lot of grumbling since Rosencrantz and Guilenstern got their own play (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard), and Ophelia has seized the opportunity to retitle Hamlet The Tragedy of the Fair Ophelia, driven mad by the callous Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Several scenes have been rewritten with a pro-Ophelia bias.

Before anything can be done Laertes makes some more changes with Ophelia and they change the name of the play to The Tragedy of the Noble Laertes, who avenges his sister the fair Ophelia, driven mad by the callous and murderous Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. And as if that wasn’t enough, Polonius decides he wants further rewrites and changes the name of the play again. It’s now called The Tragedy of the very witty and not remotely boring Polonius, father of the noble Laertes, who avenges his fair sister Ophelia, driven mad by the callous, murderous and outrageously disrespectful Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

Oh dear. 

Thursday dispatches Mrs Tiggy-Winkle to try and convince the Polonius family to attend an arbitration session. And takes urgent steps to ensure nobody gets to read this messed up version of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

Also mentioned is The Merry Wives of Elsinore (Gertrude is chased around the castle by Falstaff while being outwitted by Mistress Page, Ford and Ophelia. Laertes is the king of the fairies and Hamlet is relegated to a sixteen line subplot where he is convinced Dr Caius and Fenton have conspired to kill his father for seven hundred pounds). This sounds chaotic. Don’t look too closely,

And the most famous book merger in Shakespeare: the conjoinment of the two plays Daughters of Lear and Sons of Gloucester into King Lear. Proposals for the merger of Much Ado About Verona and A Midsummer’s Night Shrew were refused at the planning stages. Maybe someone should try again?

Kronborg Castle: thanks to Literary Hub