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Life Patterns - Celia Rees
I will admit here, I am no quilter, although I know some of my fellow History Girls are and I'm sure we will number quilters among our followers.Quilt, Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre, LampeterWhen I was...
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Down among the archives: the joys of research (part 2) by Christina Koning
One of the joys of doing research is the incidental stuff one comes across while doing it: snippets of information; details of the ‘way they lived then’ which, thought inconsequential in themselves,...
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Sir Francis Walsingham and the Marranos - by Ann Swinfen
Sir Francis WalsinghamThe first well organised secret service in England was the lifelong achievement of Sir Francis Walsingham. During the early part of his career, he worked for William Cecil – Lord...
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Serendipity and Ada Leigh by Imogen Robertson
There are many advantages to living in the modern age - dentistry, antibiotics - and, for the record, I’m also delighted to have the vote and be allowed a mortgage without my father’s permission. Then...
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Tears of the Gods by Kate Lord Brown
Driving along the Corniche the other day, it struck me that it is one of the few places left in the city where you can still see history living side by side with the towering skyscrapers springing up...
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(HOW) DARE WE WRITE HISTORICAL NOVELS? by Leslie Wilson
David Starkey has announced in various media that Wolf Hall is a 'deliberate perversion of history', (though he has neither read the books nor seen the television adaptation so I do wonder how he can...
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LOST LETTERS OF MEDIEVAL LIFE: Some thoughts from Elizabeth Chadwick
LOST LETTERS OF MEDIEVAL LIFE: English Society 1200-1250. Edited and translated by Martha Carlin and David Crouch: University of Pennysylvania Press ISBN 9 780812 223361I love historical reference...
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HISTORY DOESN’T LOOK THE SAME ANY MORE by Eleanor Updale
When I was young, I watched a lot of black-and-white films. They were on the telly every wet weekend afternoon, and although I must have seen some of them many times over, I never lost the sense that...
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A potted history of French Algeria, Carol Drinkwater
Last month I wrote a little about the events surrounding the Charlie Hebdo massacres in Paris along with my reflections, observations while travelling in Algeria seven years ago. I am continuing along...
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Emma Homan, painted by John Bradley, observed by Louisa Young
I met this little madam at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She's American, a New Yorker; her name is Emma Homan, and she was painted around 1844. Look at her! She's two.Look at her face:...
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All About Ida, by Clare Mulley
This year’s Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film went to Ida, an extraordinary, haunting, Polish historical drama directed by Paweł Pawlikowski and written by Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz....
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Child migrants to Australia by Rosemary Hayes
Some years ago I was asked by my then publisher, Penguin Australia, to write a story about child migration to Australia, a subject about which I knew nothing. However, from the moment I began to...
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Women, history and historical fiction, for today I am News Central - Gillian...
My post this month is about events, for I am surrounded by them right now. I want to talk about just two of them here: the first is Women’s History Month for 2015, which started today, and the second...
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Author Maths, by Y S Lee
The US/Canadian cover (Candlewick Press)One of the things I find consistently surprising in historical fiction is how very long it takes to get from one place to another. My Mary Quinn Mysteries...
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Historical Fictions, Fictional Histories - by Katherine Langrish
So we were sitting, just us two, tucked into the cosy corner of a pleasant dockside pub in Bristol, looking forward to a good chat over a hot meal before heading out into the frozen grey February air...
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Mrs Humphry, Miss Post and the Last Word on Bananas - Joan Lennon
It is World Book Day today - World Book Week/Fortnight for many writers - as schools and libraries up and down the land get into the spirit of the celebration and invite us to get out of our...
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January competitionThe winners of Robyn Cadwallader's The Anchoress are:Andrea PeaceKM LockwoodKaren OwenSpade and DaggerAS OlivierYou can get your prizes by sending your land address to Kate McQuaid:...
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Dinner with Veronese, by Laurie Graham
Venice and all things Venetian are the province of History Girl Michelle Lovric but today I’m venturing onto her territory. The topic came to me by a rather strange route involving my sluggish brain...
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YA - A Double Edged Sword? by Tanya Landman
Long ago, way back in the golden olden days when the world was full of lovely independent bookshops and I worked in one of them there was no Young Adult section. So how did people manage? Well, they...
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CAN WE TALK ABOUT WOLF HALL, AUTHENTICITY AND KNICKERS? – Elizabeth Fremantle
The airing of Wolf Hall’s small screen cousin has provoked a good deal of discussion: is it too slow; is it too confusing; is it too dark; wasn’t Henry fatter; wasn’t Cromwell more of a monster; is it...
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