We’re delighted to announce the HWA Crown Awards longlists for 2023: 36 books celebrating the best in historical writing, fiction and non-fiction, published during 2022–2023. There are three awards categories: HWA Gold Crown, HWA Non-fiction Crown, and HWA Debut Crown. Here are the longlisted books and what our judges say about them. The books longlisted […]
Charles I – the boy who would be King
Charles I is often thought of in polarised terms, as a martyr or a murderer. Mark Turnbull, author of a new biography of the king, argues that by more closely examining Charles’s personal relationships a more three-dimensional image of the man can be built up. Here he writes about the boy who would become a […]
Historical books to look out for in 2023
It’s back — Historia’s most popular regular feature, our round-up of books published by members of the Historical Writers’ Association (HWA) during the coming year. Here are more than 150 books covering history, biography, and historical fiction and spanning eras from Ancient Rome to the 1980s. They sweep around the world from Australia to India, […]
Historia giveaway: the 2022 HWA Non-fiction Crown shortlist
This month we’re giving away all six books shortlisted for the 2022 HWA Non-fiction Crown Award. The giveaway is open until 11.59pm on Wednesday, 7 December, 2022. Just in time for an early Christmas present for you, or a friend (or five). The winner will get one copy of each of the following books: The […]
HWA Crown Awards 2022: the longlists
We’re delighted to announce the HWA Crown Awards longlists for 2022: 36 books celebrating the best in historical writing, fiction and non-fiction, published in 2021-2022. There are three awards categories: HWA Gold Crown, HWA Non-fiction Crown, and HWA Debut Crown. The books longlisted for the HWA Crown Awards for 2022 are: Gold Crown Award 2022 […]
The book that tells 60,000 stories
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a great – and little-known – resource for historical novelists. Frances Quinn found the idea for her new book, That Bonesetter Woman, there. As anyone who’s had dealings with the publishing industry will know, one of the things it loves best is ‘the same, but different’; in other […]
Review: Henrietta Maria by Leanda de Lisle
Annie Whitehead, the historian and novelist, reviews Leanda de Lisle’s new biography of Henrietta Maria and finds it a “triumph”. Henrietta Maria, known to most with even a passing interest as the French, Catholic, wife of Charles I, has been perceived as, at best, a bad influence; at worst, “the most reviled consort to have […]
Henrietta Maria by Leanda de Lisle
Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s queen, is the most reviled consort to have worn the crown of Britain’s three kingdoms. Condemned as that ‘Popish brat of France’, a ‘notorious whore’ and traitor, she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches and turned her husband Catholic – so causing a civil war – and […]