1665. It is five years since King Charles II returned from exile, the scars of the English Civil Wars are yet to heal and now the Great Plague engulfs the land. Alethea Hawthorne is safe inside the walls of the Calverton household as a lady’s companion waiting in anticipation of the day she can return […]
Plague and pandemic: how we responded then and now
The idea for Anna Abney’s debut novel came from the “wider implications” of the Plague of 1665: the responses to the disease and its social effects. Then, editing her book during Covid, she was struck by the similarities between the ways the two pandemics affected people, as she tells Historia. I was teaching Daniel Defoe’s […]
The Master of Measham Hall by Anna Abney
1665. It is five years since King Charles II returned from exile, the scars of the English Civil Wars are yet to heal and now the Great Plague engulfs the land. Alethea Hawthorne is safe inside the walls of the Calverton household as a companion to their daughter. She waits in anticipation of her brother […]