Suggestion for a good read, which I wouldn't have expected to make, follows. There seems to me to have been, especially in the recent metaphorical-couple of decades, a surfeit of historical fiction centring on William Shakespeare, and frequently taking maximum advantage of the historically dramatic times in which he lived. Said fiction, IMO of varying quality; but, one feels, getting into some danger of becoming a flogging-to-death exercise -- albeit, with the pivotal character one re whose life the historical record is scanty, offering to writers endless scope for imagination / speculation. (Most often, Will seems to be portrayed as a mild, benign sort of chap -- in contrast with many artistic geniuses who are factually recorded as having been pretty obnoxious human beings.)
Link here hopefully, to an inventory of many -- by no means all -- of such works of fiction closely involving the Bard.
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/7731.Shakespearean_Historical_Fiction
Included here are -- for me, with weary inevitability -- quite a number of murder mysteries; and Faye Kellerman's
The Quality of Mercy -- which has Shakespeare romantically involved with an Orthodox Jewish woman -- whence, we are told,
The Merchant of Venice (an original and unusual premise, if nothing else: per history in one's general perception, the likelihood of a sixteenth-century dweller in England's making the close personal acquaintance of an Orthodox Jew would have been infinitesimal).
There are other fictional featurings of Mr. S., not included in the "goodreads" list. For instance, Rory Clements's series of historically-inspired thrillers, with as hero, Shakespeare's (fictitious) older brother John. Clements has John as a serious, sober individual, a secret-service operative under Sir Francis Walsingham, combating the continental / Catholic threat to Elizabeth's England; William makes regular appearances as his scatty, feckless actor brother. For my taste, Clements's stuff tends to be wearisomely one-trick-ponyish. Also not mentioned is Harry Turtledove's -- IMO
excellent -- novel
Ruled Britannia , set in an alternative time-line in which the Armada has succeeded in its objective; and with as a central character, Shakespeare as we know him from our time-line -- his name the same, but his plays under different names.
I'll admit to a considerable taste for fiction of questionable great-work-type value: so was interested to find a couple of months ago -- something to which I'd hitherto been oblivious -- that Bernard Cornwell -- of "Sharpe" and other "action"-oriented novel series -- has as of 2017, been another one to hit the Shakespeare-fiction trail. (The novel concerned --
Fools and Mortals -- is included actually, in the "goodreads" list linked-to above.) My sentiments about Cornwell are mixed and rather "random": some of his series, including the Napoleonic one, I'm favourably impressed with more than not; others -- not necessarily about subjects of no interest to me -- I've found boring (instance of the latter, his American Civil War books).
Will confess that at my first sight in a bookshop a few weeks ago, of
Fools and Mortals -- Cornwell's first and so far only Shakespeare-themed novel -- my thoughts were along the lines of "oh dear Lord, has this guy gone and jumped on this particular bandwagon too?" Buying and trying it turned out, however, to be irresistible; and I was pleasantly surprised. This chap does write very competently -- plus, he has for me, something of an agreeably fresh "take" on the genre. The book centres not primarily on desperate strife between mutually hostile nations / religions, or the intrigues of Elizabeth I's court (though such matters are present in the background); nor on the figuring-out of the who-and-why of murder -- it's first and foremost about the actors and their profession and its highs and lows, and skulduggery-short-of-homicide within that profession. Characters are vividly but believably drawn. The hero is Shakespeare's younger brother Richard (historical in so far as that he did have a real-life younger brother of that name) who has made his way to London, desirous of following the same occupation as his elder sibling. And Cornwell portrays Will as less of a "goody-goody" than seems to have become almost standard in this genre: his William S. is an acerbic type who -- for unknown reasons of his own -- most of the time anyway, dislikes his brother and treats him with no kindness. The novel proved for me a grand read, with a wealth of arresting happenings and lively characterisation; I find myself eager for more of such from Mr. Cornwell, with the same central cast of characters.
?) 
