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'A Plague of Mosquitoes on Your House' by Karen Maitland
'Mosquitoes liked the Costume' from Bill Nyer's History of the United States, 1894One of the unexpected consequences of the summer’s heatwave this year was the huge reduction in Lapland’s mosquito...
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Virgil and the 9/11 Memorial
by Caroline LawrenceThe 9/11 Memorial Museum opened to the public in 2014. It is impressive on many levels but what interests me most is a quote from Virgil on the wall of the Memorial Hall, deep...
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Not giving a pig’s patootie: an interview with Laurie Graham on the pitfalls...
Every novelist has her own personal history, her cast of characters that stretch way back into her writing past. Laurie Graham, a former History Girl, never dreamed of writing sequels to her two early...
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Elmet, King Arthur and me
I had my DNA done (by Living DNA), which neatly matched what I already knew about my ancestry from all the Ancestry.com family trees and my own research. In a nutshell, this is me: The...
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CP Cavafy and the essence of history
by Antonia SeniorI have written before about historical fiction in the form of poems, and how I value them (and, poorly, turn my pen to them). This month, I have been re-reading the poetry of...
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Funeral for A Virgin - Maidens Crowns
A Maiden's CrownIn the seventeenth century, the death of an unmarried young woman was commemorated by the making of an unusual wreath or garland. If you died unmarried, it was considered you were now...
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Jetting off to Japan - by Lesley Downer
New Year's, Osaka 1978; w Shigeand Reiko Tohmine. I'm on left.Forty years ago this month, in September 1978, twenty-two fresh-faced young university graduates set off for Japan. Our mission was to...
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Owing to a misunderstanding, there is no History Girls post today.Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.
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Lindsey Fraser, on the Young Walter Scott Prize - talking to Sue Purkiss
I recently had a chat with Lindsey Fraser – my Literary Agent – about a creative writing initiative for young people with which she’s involved, The Young Walter Scott Prize, and I thought readers of...
View ArticleBOOKS TO MAKE LONDON LIVE FOR YOUNG READERS by Penny Dolan
Last weekend, I was in London, walking beside the Thames in the sunshine and enjoying – despite all the new buildings - the city’s enigmatic sense of the past. History exist as a half-concealed code in...
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Piero della Francesca's Ideal City - Celia Rees
I began writing this blog in Italy, in a cafe in the small Tuscan city of Sansepolcro. I was lucky it was still there. The Rough Guide to Tuscany tells us that in 1944, the British Eighth Army was...
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The Kindness of Strangers By L.J. Trafford
Autumn is upon us. The summer is over. And I find myself reflecting on my holidays and my holiday reading. One of my holiday reads was Eric Newby’s book Love and War in the Apennines. This is a memoir...
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"A lovely country, rich in literary and historical associations" by Carolyn...
I have alreadywritten in the History Girls about the long defunct Meon Valley Railway (MVR), a feature of this lovely part of Hampshire that is often part of my daily walk, together with the River Meon...
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Developing Histories by Imogen Robertson
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We're Going on a Witch Hunt by Catherine Hokin
Edgar Allan Poe Statue BostonThe schools having returned from their holidays, I've just been on mine - trust me the novelty of travelling during term-time will never wear off. We did an East Coast trip...
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Paris, May 1968, the student's revolution by Carol Drinkwater
May 1968, ParisThese photos were taken by Bruno Barbey who was a twenty-five-year-old photographer in '68 and a superb visual...
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The Spanish Riding School by Vanessa Harbour
Our guest for August is Vanessa Harbour, author of the début novel for young readers, Flight, which deals with the rescue of a troop of Lipizzaner horses from the Nazis and their arduous journey to...
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Much In Little by Susan Price -
I usually post for Authors Electric and, a little while ago, my colleague, Griselda Heppel, wrote there about how annoying it is when people make wild unsubstantiated guesses about Shakespeare's life,...
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A bit of a research break by Elizabeth Chadwick.
Husband and sons at Carcassonne. This is short blog for my turn this month because I am packing for an imminent holiday/research break. By the time you read this, I will be chilling out somewhere in...
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Oxford Stret by Miranda Miller
One morning last week I went on a rather doleful shopping trip to Oxford Street. In the clothes departments shop assistants outnumbered customers and full racks of garments pleaded to be liked. As...
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