From Nero's nagging mother (whom he found especially annoying after taking her as his lover) to Catherine's stable of studs (not of the equine variety), here is a wickedly delightful look at the most scandalous royal doings you never ...

A "revelatory" (Wall Street Journal) romp through the intimate details of Victorian life, by an historian who has cheerfully endured them all. Lauded by critics, How to Be a Victorian is an enchanting manual for the insatiab...

Spanning 500 years of British history, a revealing look at the secret lives of some great (and not-so-great) Britons, courtesy of one of the world's most engaging royal historians  Beleaguered by scandal, betrayed by faithless spouse...

The extraordinary family story of George V, Wilhelm II, and Nicholas II: they were tied to one another by history, and history would ultimately tear them apart.Drawing widely on previously unpublished royal letters and diaries, made p...

In February 1782, England opened its newspapers to read the details of Sir Richard and Lady Worsleys' scandalous sexual arrangements, voyeuristic tendencies, and bed-hopping antics. This lively true history presents a rarely seen pict...

The nineteenth century was a time of unprecedented change, and nowhere was this more apparent than London, which, in only a few decades, grew from a compact Regency town into the largest city the world had ever seen. Technology-railwa...

An authoritative survey of the history of English-speaking peoples throughout the world combines intriguing, closely observed biographical profiles-of Alfred the Great, Victoria, Joan of Arc, Lincoln, and other notables-with an acco...

The past is a foreign country. This is your guidebook. A time machine has just transported you back into the fourteenth century. What do you see? How do you dress? How do you earn a living and how much are you paid? What sort of food ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAcclaimed historian G. J. Meyer provides a fresh look at the fabled Tudor dynasty—and some of the most enigmatic figures ever to rule a country. In 1485, Henry Tudor, whose claim to the English throne was so...

Woven from the words of the inhabitants of a small Suffolk village in the 1960s, Akenfield is a masterpiece of twentieth-century English literature, a scrupulously observed and deeply affecting portrait of a place and people and a no...

It's no secret that the marriages of monarchs are often made in hell. Here are some of the most spectacular mismatches in five hundred years of royal history.... In a world where many kings, queens, and princes lacked nothing but true...

The author of the New York Times bestseller The Plantagenets chronicles the next chapter in British history—the historical backdrop for Game of ThronesThe crown of England changed hands five times over the course of the fifteenth ce...

A history of England from 1810 to 1820, known as the Regency period. While his father declined into apparent madness at Windsor, George, Prince of Wales, served as Regent. This was the age of opulence at Carlton House and Brighton Pav...

Told in the first person by a woman who lived the hard life as a cook in a number of England's country houses, this is the true story of what life was really like below the stairsPeople talk about feeling as if the modern world is s...

Frances Evelyn 'Daisy' Maynard was a renowned beauty when at the age of 18 she married Lord Brooke, heir to the Earl of Warwick. It was the wedding of the year, and what followed was a tempestuous and scandalous lifestyle lived in the...

Here at last is a history of England that is designed to entertain as well as inform and that will delight armchair travellers, tourists or anyone interested in history. No people have engendered quite so much acclaim or earned so muc...

The family of George II has been ill-served by history and by most historians. He was a German, the last British monarch to have been born outside of Great Britain, but by the end of his long reign the House of Hanover was firmly esta...

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Secret Rooms, the extraordinary true story of the downfall of one of England's wealthiest families Fans of Downton Abbey now have a go-to resource for fascinating, real-life stories of...

England's Tudor monarchs―Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I―are perhaps the most celebrated and fascinating of all royal families in history. Their love affairs, their political triumphs, and their overturni...

The Queen Mother did not give one media interview in her 101 years. This is a brief glimpse into that wonderful world by a man who spent two years constantly at her side from 1994 to 1996 and then as a close friend until her death in ...

In 1936, the British monarchy faced the greatest threats to its survival in the modern era-the crisis of abdication and the menace of Nazism. The fate of the country rested in the hands of George V's sorely unequipped sons:•a stammer...

An erudite romp through the intimate details of life in Tudor England, "Goodman's latest…is a revelation" (New York Times Book Review).On the heels of her triumphant How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman travels even further...

"Dan Jones has an enviable gift for telling a dramatic story while at the same time inviting us to consider serious topics like liberty and the seeds of representative government." —Antonia FraserFrom the New York Times bestsellin...

A remarkable look at day-to-day life of the codebreakers whose clandestine efforts helped win World War II Bletchley Park looked like any other sprawling country estate. In reality, however, it was the top-secret headquarters of Br...

From the early fourteenth century to the end of the sixteenth, the Anglo-Scottish borderlands witnessed one of the most intense periods of warfare and disorder ever seen in modern Europe. As a consequence of near-constant conflict bet...

History has always mattered to Scots, and rarely more so than now at the outset of a new century, after more than ten years of a new parliament and the new census of 2011. An almost limitless archive of our history lies hidden inside ...

When Queen Victoria died, two gentlemen were commissioned with the monumental task of editing her vast correspondence. It would be the first time that a British monarch's letters had been published, and it would change how Victoria wa...

"Wonderful… [Flanders] shines in her readings of literary novels containing criminal and detective elements, such as Oliver Twist, Mary Barton and Tess of the D'Urbervilles, but can be sharp and very funny about the vagaries of...

Soon to be a PBS Masterpiece series starring Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey) and Francesca Annis (Cranford)  Away from the frontlines of World War II, in towns and villages across Great Britain, ordinary women were playing a vital role...

"A ridiculously diverting glimpse of downstairs life in Edwardian England. . . . Most gratifying."—Laura Miller, Salon From the immense staff running a lavish Edwardian estate and the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a c...