Medieval women’s family lives varied widely, as did the work they carried out daily. Rank in society was a factor, as was whether they lived in a town or the country, but the most important influence on their lives was their position in a family, the historian Catherine Hanley explains. Family was the concept and […]
The Family Lives of Medieval Women by Catherine Hanley
Women in the Middle Ages led fascinating and often wildly differing everyday lives, depending on their social class and family situation. Yet their wealth of experience has long been obscured and overshadowed by the experiences of men, with history books often relegating women to a single, catch-all chapter, as if their lives formed a unified […]
Turning Welsh history into fiction: the Mynydd Epynt clearances
The Mynydd Epynt clearances of 1940, when a Welsh mountain community was evicted to make way for a military training ground, inspired Luisa A Jones’s latest book, Before the Mountain Falls. Here she talks about turning history into fiction: how she researched, what she kept, the historical novelist’s responsibility to the past. In the spring […]
Hard Streets by Jacqueline Riding
Charlie Chaplin rose from the hard streets of Victorian London to become one of the most beloved comedians of all time. With his threadbare jacket, baggy trousers and puzzled expression, Chaplin’s ‘Little Tramp’ alter ego was shaped by the city of his childhood — a place of ribald variety shows and hard drinking, radical politics […]
Fenwomen by Mary Chamberlain
Mary Chamberlain’s vivid social and oral history of an isolated village in the Cambridgeshire Fens was the first book ever published by Virago. Told through the voices and lives of women, whose memories span over one hundred years, it provides a unique portrait of a working-class, rural community where intermarriage was common, most inhabitants lived […]
Grub Street: The Origins of the British Press by Ruth Herman
Love it or loathe it, the British press is a remarkable institution. Sometimes referred to as the fourth estate and accused of wielding power without responsibility, it has often been a channel for the dissemination of information that those at the top of the pyramid of power would rather stayed hidden. It has also delighted […]
Review: Elizabeth Heyrick by Jocelyn Robson
Rachael Tearney reviews the first biography of Elizabeth Heyrick, Quaker, campaigner and abolitionist. The women of the Abolitionist movement are far less well-known than the men, and this timely book highlights one whose advocation of ‘immediate’ rather than ‘gradual’ abolition of slavery put her at odds with better-known figures such as William Wilberforce. The Abolition […]
Doors of London by Melanie Backe-Hansen and Cath Harries
Walk down any street in London and pause for a moment. To your left and right is an array of doors in different styles and colours. Craftsmen across the centuries have sought to impress you with elegant designs. Owners have added their own finishing touches, a hand-painted pattern here, a Shakespeare door knocker there. The […]