Why does a historical fiction author choose a particular time to write about? And what happens when your characters insist on staying in your head when a series ends? SG MacLean, whose The Winter List is just out in paperback, writes about how she was drawn back into the world of Damian Seeker one last […]
Greek Fire, the early medieval weapon of mass destruction
Matthew Harffy looks at Greek Fire (also called Roman Fire), ‘the early medieval weapon of mass destruction’, and its connection with the Vikings and al-Andalus, as featured in his novel A Day of Reckoning. Humankind has an incredible capacity for creativity. But it is a terrible reality that this talent for creation and innovation has […]
1217 and the ideals of chivalry
In 1217 a man known as ‘the greatest knight’ broke a treaty to, as he saw it, save England from French rule. Catherine Hanley asks: did he go against the ideals of chivalry? “What, then, is chivalry?” This question is posed in the History of William Marshal, a 13th-century biography of a man who is […]
Vampire or victim? The real Countess Báthory
Who was Countess Erzsébet Báthory? A prototype vampire? A religious – or political – victim? Sonia Velton, author of The Nightingale’s Castle, investigates the real woman behind the myth. Even if you don’t know Erzsébet Báthory by name, you may well have heard of the Blood Countess who murdered numerous young virgins and bathed in […]
Magic versus jadoo in 1920s British Colonial India
Harini Nagendra writes about the street magicians of India and how these performers of jadoo fascinated Westerners, who copied their ‘tricks’ unashamedly. But the jadoogars, unlike some of their cobras, still had fangs. Growing up in India in the 1970s, I read widely, but was especially fascinated by books that featured animals, and magic. Enid […]
Review: Later Stuart Queens, 1660–1735
Linda Porter reviews a new and timely book about the later Stuart queens. This is an important and interesting collection of essays, she says — but how many will be able to afford to read it? Historia readers may be taken aback by a review of a book with the eye-watering price of more than […]
The 5th century: the fall of Rome, the birth of legends
What links the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Wagner’s Ring Cycle, the invasions of Attila the Hun and many Norse sagas? The first half of the 5th century, says Tim Hodkinson, a time of tumult when legends were born; stories which still inspire us 1,600 years later. It was a time of legends… Of […]
The surprising joys of armchair travel
The novelist Elizabeth Buchan usually looks forward to travelling to research a new novel. But when she became ill while starting work on her latest, Bonjour, Sophie, she had to rethink… A new novel to write usually triggers the anticipatory thrill of travelling for research. Many summers have seen me, rucksack on back, tracking down […]