Set in Renaissance Italy, Maggie O’Farrell’s ninth novel The Marriage Portrait imagines the lost story of Lucrezia de’ Medici, who was betrothed to the Duke of Ferrara at age 13. Her marriage was short and unhappy, and when she died at age 16 it was rumoured she was poisoned by orders of her husband.
The new book follows on the heels of Hamnet, a work of historical fiction inspired by Shakespeare's son that won the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020.
O’Farrell is also author of I am, I am, I am, a memoir which chronicles 17 brushes with death including childhood encephalitis, amoebic dysentery and an ill-advised leap off a harbour wall into the sea as a teen.