Clik here to view.
Cabinet of Curiosities - the First Dinosaur Fossils by Charlotte Wightwick
For today’s Cabinet of Curiosities we’re heading to the Natural History Museum in London. There are many, many objects there which I could quite happily add to the Cabinet, but I have chosen two small,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
January competition
To win a copy of Stef Penney's new novel, answer the following question in the Comments section below. Then copy your answer to maryhoffman@maryhoffman.co.uk so that I can contact you for your land...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What if it had been Princess Georgiana? by Mary Hoffman
The Librarian at my old Secondary School - James Allen's Girls' School - got in touch recently via my website, because she had found a photo:Now, since this school play dates from 1963, it qualifies as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Two Jews, Three Opinions – by Gillian Polack
This post is addresses difficult current issues. It shows one of the ways in which the history we love is bound to the present we live in. It may not be comfortable for all readers.Sometimes, small...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Beneath the Divan: A Family Album by Debra Daley
The oldest, the most historical item that I own is a photograph album that was probably made sometime between 1865 and the 1880s. It’s an object that is significant to me, not only as a family...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Elizabethan Hero - Katherine Langrish
A long time ago when I was a student and reading a lot of 16thcentury literature, a friend and I got talking about heroes. Her 16thcentury hero was Sir (or Saint) Thomas More, the man for all seasons,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Lighthouse Stevensons - a review by Joan Lennon
"Scotland is moated by an awkward brew of conflicting tides and currents." Truer words were never written. And in The Lighthouse Stevensons, Bella Bathurst tells the tale of what the Stevenson family,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Books That Make History Girls -- and other kinds of girls
Since becoming a History Girl I have thought a lot about what made me so interested in history, and have indulged readers’ patience with memories of school, family and ephemera. But as in so much else...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The David Parr House. by Adèle Geras
In November, 2106, I was invited by my old school friend, Carolyn Ferguson, who's an expert on historical textiles and quilting in particular, to join a small party of friends who were going to look...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'Caterpillars, Cowslips and Candlemas Bells' by Karen Maitland
Snowdrops in Lothersdale ChurchyardPhotographer: Tim GreenFebruary is traditionally the month in which the first flowers would have blossomed in an English medieval ‘Mary Garden.’ These were snowdrops,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Five Latin Love Poems by Caroline Lawrence
Cupids play music with Apollos instrumentsAs an excuse to do a bit of Latin translation I thought I’d post five Latin love poems in the run-up to Valentine’s Day. The first Latin poem I ever fell in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Apothecary as melting pot - Michelle Lovric
Many modern chemist shops, as typified by Boots, are large, impersonal places. They could not be more different from their antecedents in Venice.The old Venetian chemist, known as the Apothecary or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jackie Review by Katherine Clements
Natalie Portman as Jackie KennedyJust one week after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963, his widow invited Life Magazine journalist, Theodore H. White, to the Kennedy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
DINNER.
by Antonia SeniorI am a glutton foodie. I like eating, cooking and reading about food, although the gourmet spirit in me is somewhat crushed these days by the fishfinger-and-bakedbeans carousel of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Elizabeth Fremantle discusses the poet Aemilia Lanyer
I’ve always been interested in early modern female writers. Katherine Parr, the heroine of of my first novel, Queen’s Gambit, was one such writer; Parr wrote two devotional and political texts, which...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Love, Sex and Romance in Old Japan - Valentine’s Day Special by Lesley Downer
Until the late nineteenth century, there was no word for ‘love’ in Japanese, no equivalent to the western concept of pure, ennobling, platonic love, the courtly love of chivalry. Love was the forbidden...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arts and Crafts in Walthamstow - William Morris and Feminism by Fay Bound...
My youngest is studying the Arts and Crafts movement at secondary, so I took him to visit the William Morris Gallery. The Gallery is housed in a gorgeous Georgian house, built in the 1740s and set in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Message From The Past - by Sue Purkiss
I recently visited Canterbury Cathedral for the first time. It's a beautiful building; my favourite is still Wells, but then it is the one I know best, so I suppose I might be biased. (The Chapter...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Singalong with the Sterkarms by Susan Price
A Sterkarm Tryst by Susan PriceTryst: (Old French) an appointed station in hunting. An appointed meeting place, often of lovers. To engage to meet a person or persons. A cattle market, e.g. 'The...
View Article