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. […]
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 […]
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,
Mr Beeston and the Cockpit
Jemahl Evans brings us a brief history of London’s first West End theatre. The Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane was initially, as its name suggests, a venue for cockfights and animal baiting on the east side of Drury Lane with an entrance in Cockpit Alley. As such it was the first playhouse in the West […]
Dr. Darwin’s Writing Tips
Historian? Novelist? Reader? Who should I go to for feedback? Our resident agony aunt tackles a common question for writers of historical fiction. Dear Dr Darwin I’ve got to the stage where I want feedback on my novel-in-progress, but I only know non-historical novelists, or non-novelist historians, or readers of historical fiction who don’t write […]