Curated playlist
English historical novelists
- Charles DickensAt twelve, Charles Dickens pasted labels on boot blacking pots in a rat-infested warehouse.
- Mary ShelleyMary Shelley conceived Frankenstein in a waking dream after Lord Byron proposed a ghost story contest.
- Thomas HardyThomas Hardy's heart and ashes were buried in two different places. The Abbey got his ashes, Stinsford his heart.
- Benjamin DisraeliBenjamin Disraeli bought a controlling stake in the Suez Canal within days in 1875.
- John Henry NewmanJohn Henry Newman was an English theologian who became a cardinal and, in 2019, a saint. On the 2nd of October 2008, his grave was opened so that his remains could be moved to a tomb inside the Birmingham Oratory. There, visitors could…
- H. F. M. PrescottH. F. M. Prescott wrote a novel about a Tudor uprising that has never gone out of print.
- Philippa GregoryNovelist Philippa Gregory's charity has dug close to 200 wells in The Gambia.
- Alison WeirPublishers rejected Alison Weir's Henry VIII book for being too long, then her next for being too short.
- Harriet MartineauAfter her family's textile business failed in 1829, Harriet Martineau wrote to earn a living.
- Tim SeverinTim Severin built a boat from ox hides to test a medieval legend. In 1976 he sailed it from Ireland toward Newfoundland.