Yorick: A Jester’s Tale

Name: Yorick: A Jester’s Tale
Rating: 2.5 (5 reviews)

by John Pilkington

First published 2022

Amazon

2.5(5)

In a speculative version of twelfth-century Denmark, a stable boy with a gift for wit rises from obscurity to become the court jester remembered centuries later as Yorick. His intelligence gives him unusual access to royal life, but proximity to power also places him inside dynastic rivalries and private resentments that a fool is expected to observe without becoming dangerous himself.

Pilkington imagines the life that might lie behind the skull held by Prince Hamlet in Shakespeare's play, following Yorick's rise, influence and eventual fall. The novel is deliberately a work of historical fantasy rather than a reconstruction of a documented individual. It uses medieval court society and the literary legend of Hamlet to explore how humour can protect a powerless man until his knowledge becomes a threat.