Four of my novels have been set in the seventeenth century, and for all of them I have used Pepys’ Diary as an integral part of my research process. In the process, I became fascinated by the women who appear as vague figures in the background, between the lines, always overshadowed by Pepys’ ebullient presence. […]
September Giveaway!
Win all six books shortlisted for the 2017 HWA Non-Fiction Crown Award. Just follow the instructions below to enter. You’ve got four
The Georgian Experiment
Author Eric Lee on Georgia’s forgotten revolution and his thirty year quest to publish a book about it. I was born in America at the height of the Cold War, during the McCarthy era, when the word “socialist” was a term of derision. But I somehow managed to find myself on the Left (the Vietnam […]
The Reformation: The John Rylands Library
Historia editor Katherine Clements visits the new exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of The
Damn’ Rebel Bitches: Research Then and Now
On the 20th anniversary of her first book about the Jacobite Rebellion, Maggie Craig reflects on the
Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking
Our guest this month, historian Deborah Cadbury, on the royal dynasty that ruled Europe. While researching extensively in the royal archives at Windsor Castle for my latest book, Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking, I was struck by the resonance between late-nineteenth-century Europe and today’s world. Reading accounts of the inflammatory rhetoric of the German Kaiser, the incidents of […]
Reliable Libel
When using real people in historical fiction, how far must you be true to them? Or, rather, how wildly may you traduce them? William Sutton ponders a common concern for writers. Do you worry about misrepresenting historical figures? “You faithless writer,” cry my characters, as I attribute to them words and attitudes they would renounce. […]
Did the American Civil War End in Liverpool?
The quartermaster of the CSS Shenandoah hauled down the Confederate flag flying from the stern,