On this week's episode, a novel imagines the life of Lady Macbeth before the play opens.

From the Folcher Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore,

the Folger director. There are as many versions of Lady Macbeth as there are actors or readers interpreting the part.

The play's ambiguity encourages us to consider all the ways this character could have arrived at her murderous ambition.

Isabel Schuller's debut novel attempts to fill in a backstory for Lady Macbeth, titled Queen Hereafter, the book takes

place in 11th century Scotland, where a king's ring tended to be short and brutal. For her

version of Lady Macbeth, Schuller didn't rely on Shakespeare or his source material, Hollinshed's

Chronicles. Instead, she looked at annals and sagas that predate Hollinshid.

There, Schuller discovered a figure named Gruach, who married Macbethed, the historical Macbeth,

after her first husband died. Into the gaps and silences of the historical record, Schuller

read a life of adventure and tragedy. Her lady Macbeth descends from a line

of royal Picts and ancient people who lived in northern Scotland. Because of a prophecy,

she believes that she will one day be queen. And she's willing to do whatever it takes to make

that prophecy come true. Here's Isabel Schuller in conversation with Barbara Bogave.

I understand that this book started as a TV show, and the TV show idea came from your

realization that Lady Macbeth was a real historical person, and that's sent you to the books,

to the Google. Yeah, it really, it really did. It sent me off to the

Google. Yeah, well, it was one of those things where I don't think, I didn't realize that Macbeth was a

real king. I mean, I knew that Malcolm was, but I, you know, I never really, as a sort of Shakespeare lover,

I never really investigated the history of it. And so I wasn't particularly surprised to learn

that they were real historical characters. I think what I was surprised to learn was how much

we knew about her life, which is, which is quite surprising given that kind of what I said earlier, how much we knew about her life, which is quite surprising given that kind of what I said

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