Clik here to view.
Sicily is no longer a five-letter word, by Carol Drinkwater
I have just returned from a brief stay in Palermo and the western coast of Sicily. Autumn at the heart of the Mediterranean can hardly be bettered. The grape harvests have been completed, the olives...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Little Big Things - Louisa Young
As a history undergraduate at Cambridge in the early eighties, I learnt a lot about Balkans, Corn Laws, Reforms Acts, Causes of Wars. I had no female teacher after the age of 16. I loved history, but...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Finding truth in facts and fictions, by Clare Mulley
As I understand it, biography is about finding out the truth about people and reporting back. This seems perfect work for me, as I am naturally nosy about - let’s say interested in - people and the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Joan of Arc in 3D: a guest interview with Helen Castor
Photo credit: Chas GibbionsWe are very pleased to welcome our October guest, Helen Castor, well known to those interested in History for her book and TV series, She-Wolves. She is also famous on this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cabinet of Curiosities: Are you Sitting Comfortably? By Elizabeth Chadwick
Into this month’s Cabinet of Curiosities, I want to put my chair (of uncertain date but most likley Elizabethan) because it is a curiosity in itself with a past steeped in mystery.When I was a little...
View ArticleNot one but TWO fabulous October competitions!
We are lucky enough to have two competitions this month. Both are open only to UK residents.Firstly, our usual one linked to this month's guest. You can win one of five copies of Helen Castor's Joan of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remembrance: a Game of Bones by Mary Hoffman
Starting off November in this centenary year of the outbreak of World War One, inevitably leads to thoughts of Remembrance. Just how do we honour the dead, particularly those fallen in war?Hugely...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dialogue in Novels - a Medieval Experiment by Gillian Polack
We welcome a new History Girl today: Gillian Polack, who will be posting regularly on the 2nd of each month. You can read about her on the About Us page.First can I say how very pleased I am to be here...
View ArticleClik here to view.
THE KING'S EVIL, by Y S Lee
Hello, HG readers. I’ve been reading Liza Picard’s juicy social history of Restoration London. It is GRIPPING! Until now, I had only a hazy overview of the period, acquired during an undergraduate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thou Shalt Not Ride Sunwise About Tara - by Katherine Langrish
‘Geasa’ – the magical prohibitions or tabus laid upon Irish heroes such as Cú Chulainn – must have been very difficult and frustrating to endure, especially since it seems to have been the fate of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Succumbing to Psychogeography by Lydia Syson
Sometimes research can seem to go frustratingly, time-wastingly wrong. Last month I went to Paris to do some final (ha!) research for my new book Liberty’s Fire, which is set in the ‘terrible year’ of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
SOME THOUGHTS AROUND MY NEW NOVEL....by Adèle Geras
This is my new novel for adults, COVER YOUR EYES. It's published by Quercus Books in paperback and ebook and I have a few things I'd like to say about it which seem to be more appropriate for this blog...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'Return of the Medieval Beast' by Karen Maitland
‘Sorry I’m late,’ a family member said, rushing breathlessly into the train station late the other night. ‘I was held up by a wallaby on the road.’If you're reading this post in Australia, this is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
To paint, click or write... by Caroline Lawrence
Bertie (right) on his way to CairoEarly in 1862, Queen Victoria’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales, went on a royal tour of the Middle East. Known to his friends as Bertie, the future King Edward VII...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ellen Wilkinson and the uses of biography by Sarah Gristwood
Another march from Jarrow to London? - this time to protest against privatisation of the NHS. For many people that’s a crusade for today; for others, looking back to the 1930s, it’s just a colourful...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Westminster Oddities by Laurie Graham
I recently took a tour around Leinster House, the Dublin home of Ireland’s Parliament. It seemed to have many features that echoed its historic links with the Palace of Westminster but none of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CHOCTAW CODE TALKERS by Tanya Landman
At the end of the ‘Indian Wars’ in the 19th century many Native American children were taken away from their parents and sent to school to become ‘civilized.’ The policy - ‘kill the Indian to save the...
View ArticleOctober Competition Winners
October CompetitionsThe winner of the Flybe tickets is Pippa Goodhart - congratulations to her! The winners of copies of Helen Castor's book on Joan of Arc are:AlayneMarjorie,LindaMarkRuanTo obtain...
View ArticleClik here to view.
LOVERS' EYES – by Elizabeth Fremantle
What could be more beguiling than secret love and what more tantalising than such a love advertised in a way that was indecipherable to all but the lovers themselves. By the middle of the eighteenth...
View Article