All articles in Biography & Memoir
3rd March, 2025 in Biography & Memoir, History, Society & Culture, Women in History
From cocktails to cannibals: The adventurous life of Lady Dorothy Mills, explorer and writer
When Lady Dorothy Mills was a young girl, a female relative told her she would never be beautiful so she had better be interesting – and she was. Yet extraordinarily, this is the first book about this fearless woman who became the best-known female explorer of the 1920s and 30s,…
17th February, 2025 in Biography & Memoir, History, Women in History
Ask the author: Catherine Hanley on Joanna Plantagenet
Dr Catherine Hanley holds a PhD in Medieval Studies (Sheffield, 2001), is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is the author of historical works in several genres. Lionessheart is her latest book which follows the story of Joanna Plantagenet – princess, pioneer, captive a…
20th January, 2025 in Biography & Memoir, Military
‘we closed our eyes to the blizzard …’ Sergeant Fred Hooker’s memory of the Long March
‘Before leaving, we were issued with rations for about two and half days. The weather was terrible, and very, very cold. We arrived at a place called Winterveldt. We had covered a distance of about twenty miles and our resting place was a barn with cold floors, with just a bit of…
14th October, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, History, Women in History
Ask the author: Emily Murdoch Perkins on rewriting royal history
Emily Murdoch Perkins discusses her new book Regina: The Queens Who Could Have Been, a feminist ‘what if’ history looking at what would have happened if firstborn daughters had been crowned instead of firstborn sons. Where did the idea for the book come from? It all started…
19th September, 2024 in Aviation, Biography & Memoir, Military
To all who fell at Arnhem – Allied and German
In 1934, aged just 16, Louis Hagen was sent to Lichtenberg concentration camp after being betrayed for an off-hand joke by a Nazi-sympathising family maid. Mercifully, his time there was cut short thanks to the intervention of a school friend’s father, and he escaped to the UK so…
27th August, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Entertainment, Women in History
The music behind ‘Where Madness Lies’
Author of Where Madness Lies Lyndsy Spence, has provided the soundtrack to the fascinating, but also tragic, life of film star Vivien Leigh. The complete playlist is available on Spotify below. Happy listening… Track 1: Il cielo in una stanza by Mina The dreamy orchestration evok…
27th August, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, History
How ‘The King’s Loot’ uncovered the murky past of the Windsor Jewellery
The Duchess of Windsor’s notorious jewellery collection was, and still is, the subject of intense speculation regarding not only its murky provenance (were the gems originally sourced clandestinely from the English monarchy’s vast royal collection?), but also its eventual controv…
5th July, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
The Women Who Went Round the World
Humans have been great travellers for thousands of years. Famous early male explorers like Magellan, Sir Francis Drake and Captain Cook, are household names. Women, with their restricted positions in society and their traditional roles of looking after the house and children, had…
5th June, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Military
D-Day, the closely guarded secret that secured victory
‘Good God!’ I thought after being shown a map with a small area on it that we had taken back, ‘We’ve just taken part in D-Day!’ Flight Lieutenant Noble Frankland (DFC CB CBE) is one of those for whom 6th June 1944 might have been just another ‘ordinary day’ in the operational c…
30th May, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
The Invention of Charlotte Brontë
Brimming with lies, hagiography and exaggeration! Elizabeth Gaskell’s sensational 1857 biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë continues to divide historians, critics and Brontë fans over 160 years after its first publication. Some see it as a unique first-hand insight into the…
30th April, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Society & Culture, Women in History
The soundtrack to ‘Queens of Bohemia’
Introduction – G. Puccini, “Quando m’en vo'” La Boheme for Cello & Piano DARREN COFFIELD: Bohemian was a term used for those who lived unconventional lives, when the first Romani Gypsies appeared in sixteenth century France they were labelled bohemian and their non-conformist…
17th April, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
The legacy of Charlotte Brontë
21st April marks the anniversary of the birth of English novelist and poet Charlotte Brontë. While she lived only 38 years, her legacy – and her celebrity – have remained perennially present. Her 1847 novel Jane Eyre is one of the most enduring texts of the 19th century, a novel…