Philippa Gregory was born on the 9th of January 1954 in Nairobi, the capital of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, a place that would become the Republic of Kenya decades later. Her father, Arthur Percy Gregory, worked as a radio operator and navigator for East African Airways, while her mother, Elaine Wedd, managed the household. When Gregory was just two years old, the family relocated to Bristol, England, setting the stage for a life that would eventually bridge continents and centuries. She was not a model student at Colston's Girls' School, where she earned a B grade in English and two E grades in History and Geography at A-level, earning herself the label of a rebel. This early defiance of academic expectations did not deter her; instead, it propelled her toward journalism college in Cardiff and a year as an apprentice with the Portsmouth News. Her path eventually led to the University of Sussex, where she switched from English literature to history, earning a B.A. degree in 1982. Her academic journey did not stop there. She worked for BBC radio for two years before attending the University of Edinburgh, where she obtained a Ph.D. degree in 18th-century literature in 1985. Her thesis, The popular fiction of eighteenth-century commercial circulating libraries, laid the groundwork for a career that would see her teach at the University of Durham, the University of Teesside, and the Open University, and become a fellow of Kingston University in 1994.
The Queen Of Historical Fiction
The year 2001 marked a turning point when The Other Boleyn Girl was published, a novel that would catapult Gregory to international fame and earn her the title of the queen of British historical fiction according to AudioFile magazine. The book won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award from the Romantic Novelists' Association in 2002 and was adapted into two films, one for BBC television in 2003 and a major motion picture released by Miramax in February 2008 starring Eric Bana, Natalie Portman, and Scarlett Johansson. Her success was not limited to the Tudor period; she had already written the best-selling Lacey trilogy, Wideacre, The Favoured Child, and Meridon, which explored themes of land and incest in the 17th century. She followed this with The Wise Woman and A Respectable Trade, a novel about the slave trade in 18th-century Bristol that was adapted into a four-part drama series for BBC television, earning a BAFTA nomination and an award from the Committee for Racial Equality. Her influence extended to the Plantagenet era with The White Queen, published in 2009, which centered on Elizabeth Woodville, the wife of Edward IV. This was followed by The Red Queen, The Lady of the Rivers, The Kingmaker's Daughter, and The White Princess, creating a sprawling narrative that breathed passionate, independent life into historical noblewomen who had previously been remembered only as diplomatic currency. By 2013, Helen Brown of The Telegraph noted that Gregory had made an impressive career out of reimagining these figures, adding that her historical fiction was entertainingly speculative and came with lashings of romantic licence.