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Judith Kerr Obituary by Janie Hampton
photo: Rex ShutterstockJudith Kerr, esteemed writer and illustrator of children’s and young adult books, died last week aged 95. I had two memorable phone conversations with Judith. The first was when...
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Oh I'd love to do that... by Ruth Downie
A surprising number of people would love to be archaeologists, and if you want to know what it takes to be a real one, you’ll have go and find one and ask. But... if you want to be a sort of...
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May's Guest - Jacqueline Winspear
This month's guest is the best-selling author of the Masie Dobbs series of crime novels, Jacqueline Winspear. She was born and raised in Kent and emigrated to the USA in 1990. She has written...
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Cabinet of Curiosities by Charlotte Wightwick - the ammonite on the mantelpiece
Searching for inspiration for this month’s Cabinet of Curiosities, a Google search (note: other search engines are available) reminded me that the original Cabinets often contained wonders of Natural...
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To win a copy of Jacqueline Winspear's The American Agent (see yesterday's guest post) just answer the following question in Comments:“In the American Agent, Maisie comes to admire the war...
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"We don't do God" by Mary Hoffman
No, not a post about Alastair Campbell. We try to keep this site a politics-free zone.Two things I've seen recently have got me pondering about how difficult it is to show faith, or religious calling,...
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A Mini Greek Odyssey: Our Mythological Half Term. By Anna Mazzola
We had no real choice. We had to go to Greece. Some months ago, my eight-year-old son read the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. Since then, his obsession with Greek mythology has become...
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Ashurbanipal and the 4th Plinth - Katherine Langrish
Behold Ahurbanipal, King of the World! So he liked to style himself, and he wasn't too far from speaking the truth: from 669 to c.631 BCE he was king of an empire that stretched from Cyprus to Iran;...
View ArticleJournalism from a More Leisurely Time - Joan Lennon
My sister has been writing a biography of our grandmother, based on her letters from China, which my cousin has painstakingly transcribed.* I've had nothing to do except read and be fascinated....
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D-Day and Memory
Sometimes, I don’t mind admitting, it’s a struggle to know what to write for my monthly History Girls post. I shy away from the learned essays of some of my colleagues – not only do I not feel...
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A LOVESOME THING.......by Adèle Geras
Part OneThe other day, I visited the Cambridge University Botanic Garden with two old friends from my schooldays. Since coming to live in Cambridge in 2010, I've visited often but not often enough....
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'Lighthouse of Wonders' by Karen Maitland
Henry Winstanley's Eddystone LighthouseIf I could time-travel, one of the places I’d love to go back and visit would be the 'Essex House of Wonders', home of Henry Winstanley in the 17th century....
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Bad Guys Make Good Plots by Kate Innes
Kate InnesWe are doing something rather unusual today. We are losing founder member Caroline Lawrence, who has been posting on the 9th of the month for nearly eight years, since we began in July...
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Tetchy Madonnas when you need them – Michelle Lovric
Make your way around any corner in Venice and you may lock eyes with a Madonna in a niche or a miniature chapel. She might be painted, sculpted or made from mosaic tiles. There may be a candle, a lamp...
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A holiday in Occupied France
In April I had the good fortune to spend nine days in the south-west of France, in a little town called Castillon-la-Bataille, and in Bordeaux. I needed to scope out scenes for the new book and working...
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On Misogyny
by Antonia SeniorA friend of mine has a glorious tradition. She still reads with her near-teenage son every night. To my absolute joy, she is currently reading Mary Renault with him, in an attempt to...
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'Never to see the like again in this world' - Pepys and the Coronation
by Deborah SwiftI've spent the last three years writing a trilogy about three different women that feature in Pepys' Diary. Now that rather epic journey has come to an end, and I'm leaving Pepys' Diary...
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Intrigue, Treachery and Betrayal at the Japanese Court - by Lesley Downer
The neglected wife - Lady TsukiyamaIn 1578 a scandal ripped through the princedom of Mikawa, domain of Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu was 36 at the time and had recently snapped up the neighbouring...
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Let's Talk about the F-word by Susan Vincent
I’m a dress historian. Since this is my first blog for The History Girls, I thought I’d clamber onto my soapbox (I don’t need much persuading) and rant a little about ‘fashion’ – or the f-word as I...
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Where art began: Lascaux - by Sue Purkiss
I can just imagine the readers of this blog, who quite rightly expect evidence for every assertion, sniffing suspiciously at that title. "How do you know?" murmur my imaginary readers. "How can you be...
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