Today, we welcome Elizabeth St.John, author of The Lady in the Tower, a novel set in the seventeenth century. Heads up, folks, Elizabeth will be giving an Author Talk at Lydiard House as part of the Swindon Festival of Literature on May 4th, 2017. The Vertues of Gilberts Water and other Curatives from Lady Johanna’s Recipe Book by… Read on
Last year on The Seventeenth Century Lady, we had a guest post by literary historian Dr Sara Read, entitled Menstruation & Female Bleeding in Seventeenth-Century England. To this day, this is one of the most popular guest posts in this site’s history, with over 17,000 reads. I’m delighted to welcome Sara back today, conversing with me about historical… Read on
As I’m no longer bound by deadlines for my own work, I’ve been making progress on my list of books to read for fun. One of these was The Miniaturist, which was published in 2015 and widely acclaimed. This book was, largely, unputdownable and I looked forward to the few minutes of reading time I have at the… Read on
Fact, Fiction and Fantasy in a Seventeenth Century Setting I think of myself as a writer of historical fiction. I write books set in the past, using real events to securely locate the stories in time and place while creating characters and tales that are entirely fictitious. This would seem to me to be pretty much the definition… Read on
The Seventeenth Century Lady Interview with Paul Workman. The seventeenth century had some amazing art, and it’s no wonder that some of that brilliant art continues to inspire artists in our day. Paul Workman is a perfect example of this, for he is an artist who, inspired by the likes of major portraitists such as Peter Lely, makes… Read on
Sophia is the beautiful and much-younger wife of Cornelius, a wealthy merchant in Amsterdam. Her husband is quite likeable and rather amusing, and she is content enough with the life she leads with him. Everything gets turned upside down when Cornelius decides he wants to get their joint portraits painted by painter Jan van Loos. Van Loos and Sophia… Read on
Shūsaku Endō (1923-1996) was a Japanese writer famed for incorporating his Roman Catholicism as a theme into his work. Silence, originally published in 1966 is a novel set in the 1630s and which centres around the young Portuguese Catholic priest, Rodrigues, who sets off from Portugal with his fellow priest and missionary, Garupe. The two have heard rumours concerning… Read on
Looking back on 2016 is both bitter and wonderful for me. My health played a huge role and this had a knock-on effect for practically everything else in my life. Firstly, I became pregnant in January and this was of considerable emotional stress for me, particularly because in autumn of 2015, I miscarried my first child (hence the… Read on
Good day to you! From Friday 2nd to Sunday the 4th of September, I attended the Historical Novel Society Conference in Oxford. This was the second HNS conference I attended – the first being two years ago in London – but this was the first one in which I took part as a speaker. I had a really… Read on
4.5 stars – I really liked this book, which is historical fiction, time-slip, fantasy, historical and contemporary romance, and even has a bit of murder mystery. There are three different storylines, one in the seventeenth century, the early nineteenth century, and present day. It should be no surprise that my favourite story was the one set in the… Read on
3/5 – This book left me with mixed feelings – especially as Grayling is one of the most respected modern philosophers and I had been excited to read the book (which I would suggest is good for those who already have knowledge about the time period). I agree with Grayling that the seventeenth century was an amazing time in… Read on
After our stay at the Stonehenge campsite last Autumn, Gavin and I made our way to Marlborough, which is a lovely town in Wiltshire, England. This amazing house was built for and lived in by a wealthy seventeenth-century silk merchant named Thomas Bayly. The construction is believed to date from between 1653 and 1700, and the interiors have… Read on
Good day to you all! There are a number of things to mention here today. In April, I was one of the first contributors to the brand-new history magazine, History of Royals, and I was delighted to write a feature on the Romanovs. It was a wonderful experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed researching that imperial family from 1613-1918.… Read on
The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace recently opened their latest exhibition, Maria Merian’s Butterflies on the 15th of April, 2016. According to the Press Office: “The exhibition will tell the extraordinary story of 17th-and-18th-century artist and explorer Maria Sibylla Merian through the superb collection of her work in the Royal Collection. In 1699, at the age of 52, Merian… Read on
I’ve travelled from England to Scotland so many times since I was a kid I’ve lost count. Perhaps that is why I find Robert Carey’s ride so interesting. But it was when I was standing before the gates of Richmond Palace, the place where the Tudor dynasty ended, that I really felt that I wanted to tell the… Read on
Released in 2015 in the US and 2016 in the UK, The Witch: A New England Folktale is soon to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK, having been in theatres in March. Having heard very good things about this film from friends in the US, I finally have the time to review it here. The… Read on
Our latest review is of the new release In the Footsteps of the Six Wives of Henry VIII by Sarah Morris and Natalie Grueninger. Although this is not a book about the seventeenth-century, one mustn’t overlook the importance of the Tudors upon the Stuart period, and so I was happy to review it here on The Seventeenth Century… Read on
The National Maritime Museum’s latest exhibition Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution is the largest-ever exhibition about Samuel Pepys and has over 200 objects on display (some of which come from private collections!). Early last month, I attended a private viewing of this exhibition, and I finally have time to write my thoughts about it. With such a packed title, you… Read on
Masters of the Everyday, a new exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace. For the purposes of this review, I will only be focusing on the 17th-century exhibition, although there is another which is being presented at the same time, High Spirits: The Comic Art of Thomas Rowlandson, comprising works from one of the wittiest and most popular caricaturists of… Read on
Good day to you! I can’t believe it’s Monday again – time certainly has been flying by. Today, we have something a little different from what I usually post on TSCL. I don’t usually do these tagged posts, but as I was tagged by Annelisa, who has been so kind to me on Twitter, I thought why not? … Read on
Good day to you! I’ve been reading a lot, as usual, and these are some of my reviews of the recent books about 17th-century history that I’ve read, which may be of interest to you as well. Mark Kishlansky’s Charles I: An Abbreviated Life What a breath of fresh air was this book! All the time, one hears… Read on
The Wicked Lady is a film that was released in 1945 and starred Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, and Patricia Roc, and was set in 1683 England. The story begins with a young couple – Caroline and Ralph – who are happily engaged and set to marry in a few days’ time. Caroline, warm and genuine, is completely in… Read on