History & Reference Books

A BBC History Magazine Book of the Year. ‘One of the most important books to be written about the Tudors in a generation.’ Tracy Borman In this groundbreaking history, Sarah Gristwood reveals the way courtly love made and marred the Tudor...

A BBC History magazine Book of the Year. As religion divided sixteenth-century Europe, an extraordinary group of women rose to power. They governed nations while kings fought in foreign lands. They ruled on behalf of nephews, brothers and sons. They...

Sunday Times bestselling novelist Alison Weir returns with the spellbinding story of Mary I. A DESTINY REWRITTEN. A ROYAL HEART DIVIDED. Adored only child of Henry VIII and his Queen, Katherine of Aragon, Princess Mary is raised in the golden splendour...

Churches are all around us. Their steeples remain landmarks in our towns, villages and cities, even as their influence and authority has waned. They contain art and architectural wonders - one huge gallery scattered, like a handful of jewels, across...

Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Millicent Fawcett, Emmeline Pankhurst, Constance Markievicz, Nancy Astor They terrorised the establishment. They fought for the vote. They pushed back boundaries and revolutionised our world. For the...

On April 16, 2019, five days before the celebration of Easter, a blazing fire engulfed the world famous Notre-Dame de Paris. A marvel of Gothic architecture, construction on the Notre Dame Cathedral was begun in 1160 and completed in 1345. For almost...

Written in aid of the crucial restoration work to restore Paris’s great cathedral, Notre-Dame: A Short History of the Meaning of Cathedrals is a moving, short piece of non-fiction celebrating the stunning history of this beloved building, from Ken...

'The classic book on Black people in Georgian London' DAVID OLUSOGA 'Deeply researched, lucidly written and utterly fascinating . . . If you ever thought Black British history started with Windrush, read this book' GREG JENNER Georgian England had a...

Meet Charles Ignatius Sancho: his extraordinary story, hidden for three hundred years, is about to be told. I had little right to live, born on a slave ship where my parents both died. But I survived, and indeed, you might say I did more… It’s 1746 and...

This richly illustrated collection presents the extraordinary life stories of fourteen bright stars from Black British history - from Tudor England to modern Britain - and charts their ongoing influence. This important and timely book delves into the...

This 24 page publication takes an in-depth look at the Tomb of the 'Unknown Warrior' at Westminster Abbey. Written by James Wilkinson, it looks at the idea behind the Unknown Soldier, the selection of the deceased, the journey of the coffin and the...

The first performance of Handel’s 'Messiah' in Dublin in 1742 is now legendary. Gentlemen were asked to leave their swords at home and ladies to come without hoops in their skirts in order to fit more people into the audience. Why then, did this now...