By Any Other Name
Ballantine Books, 2024

Thank you for your interest in this event, however tickets to the Keynote event are sold out. In the coming weeks we will be announcing a special author event for Monday, September 30. In order to get pre-sale notice for this event, be sure to sign up for our enews.

This year’s festival kicks off on Friday, September 27, at 7 PM at the Cape Henlopen High School Theatre with the 2024 History Book Festival Keynote Event with Jodi Picoult, author of By Any Other Name (Ballantine Books, 2024).

About the book
This novel tells the story of two women, centuries apart — one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays — who are both forced to hide behind another name to make their voices heard.

In 1581, Emilia Bassano — like most young women of her day — is allowed no voice of her own, but as the Lord Chamberlain’s mistress, she has access to all theater in England and finds a way to bring her work to the stage secretly. And yet, creating some of the world’s greatest dramatic masterpieces comes at great cost: by paying a man for the use of his name, she will write her own out of history.

In the present, playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. Although the challenges are different four hundred years later, the playing field is still not level for women in theater. Would Melina — like Emilia — be willing to forfeit her credit as author, just for a chance to see her work performed?

Told in intertwining narratives, this sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire asks what price each woman is willing to pay to see her work live on, even if it means that she herself will be forgotten.

About the author
Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 29 novels, including Mad Honey (co-authored with Jennifer Finney Boylan); Wish You Were Here; The Book of Two Ways; A Spark of Light; Small Great Things; Leaving Time; My Sister’s Keeper; and, with her daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page.

Picoult will be in conversation with Alicia Andrzejewski at the event.

Alicia Andrzejewski is an assistant professor in the English department at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She is a scholar of early modern literature and culture, queer, feminist, and critical race theory, and the medical humanities.  

About the event
A reservation is required to attend this event. Each reservation includes one general admission seat and a signed, hardback copy of By Any Other Name. Please note that this event is sold out.

The Keynote Event is funded through the generous support of Sally Mott Freeman and John K. Freeman.

Purchase the book
Please help support local independent bookstores by purchasing this book at Browseabout Books, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Online sources and digital versions are tempting; however, supporting local brick and mortar shops helps to preserve our vibrant main streets. Drop by Browseabout, order books online, or call the store at 302-226-2665. You also may purchase a copy at biblion in Lewes.

About the Festival
The History Book Festival is the first and only book festival in the United States devoted exclusively to history. With the help of our presenting funding partners — Delaware Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices | PenFed Realty — as well as our program and community partners, volunteers, and donors, the 2024 History Book Festival will be full of great discussions with authors of newly published narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. Our Keynote event is presented by Sally Mott Freeman and John K. Freeman, and our Closing event is presented by Griswold Home Care for Sussex and Kent Counties. Saturday’s Spirited Discussion, our gathering for attendees and presenters to celebrate and discuss their day, is presented by Dogfish Head Beer & Benevolence.

Special thanks to our Founding Program Partners for their continuing support: the Lewes Public Library, for event promotion and production, and Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Thanks also to: the  Lewes Chamber of Commerce for event promotion, and the Cape Gazette and Delmarva Public Media, our media partners.

Additional thanks to our community partners: CAMP Rehoboth, Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center,  Historic Lewes Farmers Market, Lewes Historical Society, Rehoboth Art League, Rehoboth Beach Film Society, Seaside Jewish Community, and Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice (SDARJ).