Wales in the 18th century was a land where old magical beliefs and new science met, clashed, mixed and evolved, says Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of The Shadow Key. Her book explores the possibilities of this tension – and is also a “love letter to Wales and the Gothic”. The 18th century was a time of […]
Bedlam, Robert Hooke and Henry Hunt
The latest in Robert J Lloyd’s Hunt and Hooke crime novels takes Robert Hooke and Henry Hunt to Bedlam, the recently-rebuilt Bethlehem Hospital — which Hooke himself designed. Rob looks at the extraordinarily wide range of interests these two 17th-century scientists had in real life. The two main characters in my Hunt & Hooke series […]
The Darker Quacks – Between folklore and science
Oscar de Muriel found the Victorian clash between science and superstition an irresistible background for his Frey and McGray spooky Scottish whodunits, he tells Historia. A man sets up a box amidst a busy market, jumps on top of it cradling a boxful of tiny glass vials, and begins his chant. His new miraculous tonic […]