When author Nicola Cornick agreed to review Jean Fullerton’s latest novel, A Ration Book Childhood, she had no idea that her first taste of these World War II East End books would end up with her paying it the ultimate compliment… buying the rest of the series. A Ration Book Childhood is a richly-textured and […]
Entertaining Mr Pepys by Deborah Swift
London, 1666. Elizabeth ‘Bird’ Carpenter has a wonderful singing voice, and music is her chief passion. When her father persuades her to marry horse-dealer Christopher Knepp, she suspects she is marrying beneath her station, but nothing prepares her for the reality of life with Knepp. Her father has betrayed her trust, for Knepp cares only for […]
Health and Hellfire: Personalising the Plague in 17th Century London
Deborah Swift explores how the plague was understood and treated in 17th century London. Today, people have widely variable responses to disease and its cure. I don’t think I’m alone in having friends who show hypochondriac tendencies, who use ‘alternative’ or even quack medicines, or who are convinced that a random event, real or supernatural, has […]
History by the River April 18
History by the River is a monthly panel event with a social buzz for lovers of books, history and good beer. It’s a chance to get together with fellow readers and authors to hear about the best new historical writing, then discuss it all over a drink afterwards. Three acclaimed writers, three remarkable stories, one […]
Animating Pepys’ Women
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. […]
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 […]
History by the River September 2017
History by the River is a monthly panel event with a social buzz for lovers of books, history and good beer. It’s a chance to get together with fellow readers and authors to hear about the best new historical writing, then discuss it all over a drink afterwards. NB: you can’t actually see Tower Bridge […]
History By The River July 2017
History by the River is new a monthly panel event with a social buzz for lovers of books, history and good beer. It’s a chance to get together with fellow readers and authors to hear about the best new historical writing, then discuss it all over a drink afterwards. NB: you can’t actually see Tower […]