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Telling the truth by Marianne Kavanagh
Our June guest is Marianne Kavanagh.Photo credit: Marzena PogorzalyThis is what she says about herself:Marianne Kavanagh is a writer and journalist. She has worked on staff for Woman, Tatler, the...
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June competition
To win a copy of Should you ask me by Marianne Kavanagh, just answer the following question in the Comments section below:"Which other fictional elderly characters tell stories that are intended to...
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Welcome to our birthday party! by Mary Hoffman
The History Girls blog is 6 years old today and we hope you will want to join us in celebrating at our party. It has a special theme as all July we are having a Jane Austen month.Drawing by Cassandra...
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Miss Fisher and Melbourne, by Gillian Polack
If Phryne Fisher had not been fictional, she probably knew two of my great-aunts. Today my thoughts keep returning to Phryne Fisher. I’m just discovering how very popular she is outside Australia. What...
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Writing Routines by Debra Daley
The first thing I do each morning is meditate for around fifteen or twenty minutes. Nothing fancy, just concentrating on my breath. I love the time just before dawn when the present moment is quiet and...
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Doctor Brewer’s Guide to Science - Katherine Langrish
A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar (with an appendix of questions without answers) by the Rev. Dr Brewer, Trinity Hall, Cambridge.Thirty-Eighth EditionAbove 300,000 copies of this...
View ArticleGetting Dressed as a Regency Lady - Joan Lennon
In honour of History Girls' Jane Austen Month, and continuing my occasional thread of videos about historical underwear*, I give you -Enjoy!* Getting Dressed as a Victorian Lady and Getting Dressed as...
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A Chattering Of Choughs and A Scream Of Swifts Sheena Wilkinson
I’ve spent this week at the Scattered Authors’ summer retreat at Charney Manor in Oxfordshire. The manor is thirteenth century, with Elizabethan additions, and the adjacent churchyard has graves from...
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Sulpicia's birthday
by Antonia Senior It is mid-afternoon on a Saturday and I am in a pub. Alone. With no children. I am hanging around, waiting for child 1 to emerge from a dreadful, dark din of trampolines and neon,...
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A chat with Sophie Masson......by Adèle Geras
Sophie Masson, the prolific and energetic writer of books for children, young adults and adults, has recently spent a month in Cambridge and I took advantage, I have to confess, of her presence to ask...
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'Piss Clear and Defy the Physician' by Karen Maitland
Credit: Wellcome Library, LondonWellcome ImagesI imagine most historical fiction authors have a collection of favourite reference books they dip into on many occasions, and one of my treasured volumes...
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A Latin Library on Your Phone
by Caroline LawrenceWe live in an extraordinary age of access to research and resources. Every day more and more photo galleries, manuscripts and scholarly articles come online. As an author of...
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Sunbeams in a bottle – Michelle Lovric
My local celebrity seems a cheerful chap, even in death. This is Lionel Lockyer’s grandiose tomb and effigy in the north transept of Southwark Cathedral near my home in London. The Cathedral has been...
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Six of the Best Austen Adaptations by Katherine Clements
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the film is never as good as the book. That hasn’t stopped millions of Austen fans enjoying countless movie and TV versions of her novels. I can’t prove it,...
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Playing Paris: judging beautiful books
by Antonia SeniorLast year, I was asked by the Historical Writers Association to chair the judging committee of a new award: the HWA Endeavour Ink Gold Crown. I had been on the judging panel the year...
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BIRDS, WATER AND FOLDS IN TIME – Elizabeth Fremantle takes inspiration from...
An aerial view of the BroadsI swore my devotion to London many years ago. It is where I was born and where I did most of my growing up. Even during a three year sojourn in Paris I was desperately...
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Breaking through a wall of silence: Researching the Women’s Palace in old...
The dimensions of the Seraglio and the extent to which it exerted a malign influence upon the conduct of public affairs may be measured by the number of its inhabitants. A History of Japan, 1615 -...
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Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey and Farleigh Hungerford Castle
by Marie-Louise JensenIn honour of our July celebration of Jane Austen, I thought I'd draw readers' attention to the research done by Janine Barchas in her work Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History,...
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Francis Masson, plant hunter: 1741-1805 - by Sue Purkiss
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post introducing the plant hunters - you can find it here. Logically, my first subject should be Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), a wonderful, larger-than-life character...
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