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Alex von Tunzelmann and Reel History by Imogen Robertson
Alex von Tunzelmann is a damn fine historian (see Indian Summer and Red Heat). She is also extremely funny, especially when she’s angry about something, and she's a film buff. I have spent many happy...
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Old Friends by Kate Lord Brown
VELLICHOR: n. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself...
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Lazy beds, or graveyards of hope
You might think the corrugations in this field were part of ancient strip farming, but they are something much more sinister. This field, which I saw beside Killary Fjord in Connemara this summer, is...
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COMMERCIAL HISTORICAL FICTION: A New Voice
For my monthly post on The History Girls blog I am interviewing Joanna Courtney about her debut novel, THE CHOSEN QUEEN, the first in a trilogy about the women of the Norman Conquest. Its general...
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THE FALLEN WOMAN by Eleanor Updale
Today, a new exhibition opens at the Foundling Museum in London.Frederick Walker, The Lost Path, 1863 © The Makins CollectionWith a special emphasis on Victorian times, it is an exploration of...
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Mourning Palmyra, by Carol Drinkwater
The destruction of our ancient history, of magnificent sites that are, or were, jewels in our cultural heritage and are now nothing but rubble, makes my blood boil.We are all of us reading the news and...
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Liberation from Weihsien Campby Janie Hampton In August, Clare Mulley wrote in History Girls about the atom bombs dropped on Japan which killed over 150,000 people. A terrible event: but by bringing...
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Leonard Mulley: a very civil hero, by Clare Mulley
Sorting through some family papers recently, my mother came across a handsome gentleman’s silver cigarette case. The initials ‘LM’, etched squarely onto the front, stand for Leonard Mulley. Len was my...
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Girls of Troy by Frances Thomas
Our guest for September is Frances Thomas. She was born in Wales during the war, but brought up in South London and read English at London University. She is married to a historian, has two daughters...
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One lucky History Girls Follower can win a set of all three of Frances Thomas's Girls of Troy titles.Just answer the following question in the Comments section below:"Which character from the Trojan...
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Does Elena Ferrante write historical fiction? by Mary Hoffman
Like everyone else, it seems, I have just finished reading Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet. The Story of the Lost Child is the last book, to many readers' regret and, if you haven't come across it...
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Foodways, Fiction and the Inquisition - Gillian Polack
One of my favourite things when I read historical novels is reading about the food. I love it when writers get the food wrong, for I can call in my historian self and mentally shout “You cook the honey...
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Memoir vs fiction, by Y S Lee
Over the past two years, I’ve been reading memoirs from survivors of the Pacific War – that is, the Pacific theatre of the Second World War. Nearly all of them are awe-inspiring, and I’ve already...
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Merlin's isle of Gramarye - by Katherine Langrish
See you the dimpled track that runsAll hollow through the wheat?O that was where they hauled the gunsThat smote King Philip's fleet!So begin's 'Puck's Song' from Rudyard Kipling's love-song to England,...
View ArticleBerlin, Summer of 1945 - Joan Lennon
Of course I knew that Berlin was heavily bombed during WWII. I knew it as a series of facts - X many air raids, Y many tons of explosives dropped, Z many deaths. But it was this video of the aftermath,...
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The Slang Trap by Lydia Syson
What a terrible temptation for the historical novelist they are, those dictionaries of slang, enticing you seductively into worlds of rattling mumpers and snappish slubber-degullions. Hundreds have...
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BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE (FITZWILLIAM) MUSEUM by Adèle Geras
This is the faccade of a part of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Almost the first thing I did when we moved to this city in 2010 was to join the Friends of the Fitzwilliam. The museum is known as...
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A Caravan of Stoats and Confusion of Weasels by Karen Maitland
Living in a country Devon village brings some unexpected delights. Last week, I stepped out of my English Stoat. Photographer: Kevin Law, Los Angeles, USA.front door to find an adult stoat and four...
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Mudlarks on the Foreshore by Caroline Lawrence
FORESHORE - the part of a shore between high- and low- water marks, or between the water and cultivated or developed land. MUDLARK - a person who scavenges in river mud for objects of valueNOTICE:...
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Saint Dimitri the Myrrh Gusher – Michelle Lovric
When you look up the hours of your local ufficio postale in Italy, the website will tell you which date it is closed annually for its particular saint’s feast day. Each post office has its own patron...
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