Category: Uncategorized

On May 7th 1747, Johanna Magdalena Catharina Judith Van Dorth was baptized in the small church of a village named Warnsveld, in the east of the Netherlands. She died in 1799 after a most remarkable life, after literally being shot in the coffin that became her final resting place. There is not much certainty about Johanna’s…

After watching ‘Shipwrecks: Britain’s Sunken History’ on BBC4, I was really interested to see how Dr Sam Willis could outdo himself. To put it simply, he outdid himself with this book. Dr Sam (as I will refer to him throughout this review) really captured my interest and imagination on the subject with ‘Shipwrecks: A History…

If Emma herself, the snobbish, infuriating but still likeable heroine of Jane Austen’s novel, had read this summary of her situation, she would probably have agreed with it. But by modern standards…just how lucky was Emma Woodhouse? Pros and Cons On the one hand she was featherbedded with an insanely large fortune; she was adored…

Trowelblazers is a new tumblr website dedicated to celebrating the lives of female archaeologists, paleontologists and geologists. These women have been doing awesome work for far longer and in far greater numbers than most people realise. Our Editorial Assistant, Polly Heffer, had a lovely chat with the Trowelblazer ladies and here is what she found out!…

First things first, this is the story of Samson and Delilah, who are both biblical characters. Regardless of how much you want to dispute its historical credentials, I still think this book is worthy of our first review.  As a ballpark, I’d say 30% of this book is based on real historical content. The other 70%…

Hang on…a town hung an elephant? I was procrastinating online today and stumbled across an article in the forever brilliant and dramatic MailOnline (don’t dwell on this fact, it’s my guilty pleasure). After I questioned my eyes, and general humanity, I figured this was just a case of early 20th century Photoshopping. Turns out this photo, and the…

“Scotland and Ireland are the same place”, wrote Isidore of Seville. By drawing attention to the sectarian element in Glasgow’s gangland culture – the conflation of Catholic and ‘Irish’, and the collaboration of Unionist politicians with such Protestant gangs as the Billy Boys – Andrew Davies suggests that St Isidore’s remark was as true in…

The House of Stuart seem to have been particularly prone to making secret marriages, but they were hardly the first royals to do so. Catherine of Valois, the French Princess who married the famous warrior king Henry V of England chose as her second husband Owen Tudor, a Welsh squire whom she allegedly met when…

I approached this novel with trepidation – I enjoyed ‘Call The Midwife’ on TV but doctor / nurse romances are just not my thing at all. And yet this was a thoroughly good read. The fourth in a series of novels, this continues the story of a group of trainee nurses in the east end…

Officer Cassius Corbulo is a Secret Agent for Imperial Rome. Yes! I didn’t know this job existed within the structure of the Roman Army! He is sent to the Greek Island of Rhodes by Chief Pulcher, Head of the Imperial Security Service to pick up some documents from Memor, his deputy. He arrives on the…