Germaine Greer's next book will be titled Shakespeare's Wife and will be published in September. We can probably assume, though it isn't exactly stated, that the piece published in "The Guardian" over the weekend is an excerpt.
Greer makes one interesting point I hadn't come across before:
By the 1580s, people who couldn't read were sensible of a spiritual as well as a social disadvantage, because they were barred from direct access to the word of God. In the winter, when there was little or no work for children in the fields, even the humblest farming villages set up dame schools, where girls were taught to read and sew, boys to read, write and cast accounts. Reading was essential if a woman was to follow her daily devotions; sewing provided for her and her family. In Shakespeare's plays we encounter men who cannot read, but never women.
