author
active 1600 William Kemp
Best known as the lively comic performer Will Kemp, he left behind one of the quirkiest first-person works of the Elizabethan stage: an account of his famous morris dance from London to Norwich. His surviving writing offers a rare, playful glimpse of performance culture around 1600.
1 Audiobook
Kemps Nine Daies Wonder: Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich
by active 1600 William Kemp
About the author
Remembered today as Will Kemp or William Kempe, he was an English actor, dancer, and comic performer associated with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the company that also included William Shakespeare. Modern book records for "William Kemp, active 1600" generally connect that name with the author of Kemps Nine Daies Wonder.
That short work, printed in 1600, tells the story of his much-talked-about morris dance from London to Norwich. The book mixes travel narrative, performance, self-promotion, and humor, which makes it more lively and personal than many works that survive from the period.
Although he is better known as a stage figure than as a traditional literary author, his writing has lasted because it captures the voice of a real entertainer at work. For readers interested in Shakespeare’s world, popular performance, or eccentric pieces of early English nonfiction, Kemp remains an entertaining and distinctive presence.