Tag Archives: Philippa Gregory

Quite the Collection

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In addition to my two library cards and my many online sources I have during the past few years – commencing mainly in 2022 – accumulated a rather large collection of used books from a handful of charity shops I have frequented, mainly in Hull but also in some other East Yorkshire towns. Over the weekend I set about cataloguing the lot, though this list excludes those which I have given away as gifts to friends or family members. The small minority which I am currently reading or have already finished are shown in bold.

FICTION (arranged by author)

Dr. Gregory’s books have proven particularly easy to find at sub-£ prices.

  • Austen, Jane: The Complete Novels
  • Blyton, Enid: The Secret Seven (books 4-6)
    • Go Ahead
    • On The Trail
    • Good Work
  • Boyne, John: The Boy in Striped Pyjamas
  • Brooks, Max: World War Z
  • Chaucer, Geoffrey & Spearing, Anthony Colin: The Knight’s Tale
  • Dickens, Charles: Little Dorrit
  • Durrell, Lawrence: Sebastian
  • Gerber, Michael: Barry Trotter
    • and the Shameless Parody
    • and the Unnecessary Sequel
  • Gregory, Philippa
    • The Boleyn Inheritance
    • The Constant Princess
    • The Favoured Child
    • The Lady of the Rivers
    • The Other Boleyn Girl
    • The Other Queen
    • The Red Queen
    • The Taming of The Queen
    • The White Princess
    • The White Queen
    • Three Sisters, Three Queens
  • Keyes, Daniel: Flowers for Algernon
  • Lawrence, David Herbert
    • Lady Chatterley’s Lover
    • Women in Love
    • Sons and Lovers
  • Mallinson, Allan: A Call to Arms
  • Mantel, Dame Hilary: Bringing Up the Bodies
  • Mitchell, Margaret: Gone With The Wind
  • Naylor, Doug: Red Dwarf, Last Human
  • Orwell, George: The Complete Novels
  • Penman, Sharon: The Sunne in Splendour
  • Sachor, Louis: Holes
  • Sansom, Christopher John: Sovereign
  • Shakespeare, William: The Complete Works
  • Thackeray, William Makepeace: Vanity Fair
  • Tolkien, Christopher: The History of Middle-earth (volumes 1-7)**
    • The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1
    • The Book of Lost Tales, Part 2
    • The Lays of Beleriand
    • The Shaping of Middle-earth
    • The Lost Road and Other Writings
    • The Return of the Shadow
    • The Treason of Isengard
  • Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel: Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo
  • Towles, Amor: A Gentleman in Moscow
  • Townsend, Sue: Adrian Mole, The Prostate Years
  • Tsiolkas, Christos: Dead Europe

NON-FICTION (arranged by topic)

ANCIENT WORLD

  • Beard, Dame Mary
    • How Do We Look? The Eye of Faith
    • Pompeii, The Life of a Roman Town
  • Graves, Robert: The Greek Myths, Vol. 1 & 2
  • Peddie, John: The Roman War Machine
  • Potter, Timothy William: Roman Italy
  • Taggart, Caroline: A Classical Education
  • Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War
  • Wells, Colin: The Roman Empire

ART & ARCHITECTURE

  • Cruickshank, Dan: Adventures in Architecture
  • Devonshire, Deborah, Duchess of: The House, Chatsworth
  • National Trust:
    • Beningbrough Hall*
    • Treasures of
  • Spalding, Frances: British Art Since 1900
  • Style, Colin & O-Ian: House Histories for Beginners
  • Suh, H. Anna: Leonardo’s Notebook
  • Taylor, Richard: How to Read a Church

BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS (arranged by protagonist)

  • Cameron of Chipping Norton, David, Baron: Cameron at 10 (Sir Anthony Seldon & Peter Snowdon)
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    • The Churchills, In Love & War (Mary Sybilla Lovell)
    • Winston & Clementine, The Triumphs & Tragedies of the Churchills (Richard Hough)
  • Clark, Alan: Into Politics (himself)
  • Cook, James: Captain James Cook (Richard Hough)
  • Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of (Amanda Foreman)
  • Fowlds, Derek: A Part Worth Playing (himself)
  • Hodkinson, Mark: No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy (himself)
  • Holbein, Hans: The King’s Painter, The Life & Times of (Moyle, Franny)
  • Hudson, Kerry: Lowborn (himself)
  • Ishikawa, Tetsuya: How I Caused The Credit Crunch (himself)
  • Kaufman, Sir Gerald: How to be a Minister (himself)
  • Kay, Adam: Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas (himself)
  • Macron, Emmanuel: The French Exception (Alan Plowright)
  • Mitford, Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford (Charlotte Mosley)
  • Mowlam, Mo: The Biography (Julia Langdon)
  • Newcastle, William, 1st Duke of: Portrait of a Cavalier (Geoffrey Trease)
  • Palin, Sir Michael: Full Circle (himself)
  • Pilkington, Karl: The World of Karl Pilkington (Ricky Gervais)
  • Riverdale, Robert “Skips”, Baron: A Life, A Sail, A Changing Sea (himself)
  • Smith, Matt: The Biography (Emily Herbert)
  • West, Timothy: Our Great Canal Journeys (himself)
  • Whitelaw, William, Viscount: The Whitelaw Memoirs (himself)

CONTEMPORARY POLITICS

  • Abell, Stig: How Britain Really Works
  • Brooks, Richard: The Great Tax Robbery
  • Cohen, Nick: Waiting for the Etonians
  • Harding, Luke: Shadow State, Murder, Mayhem & Russia’s Remaking of the West
  • Luce, Edward: In Spite of the Gods, The Strange Rise of Modern India
  • Minton, Anna: Ground Control
  • Runciman of Doxford, David, 4th Viscount: How Democracy Ends
  • Willetts, David, Baron: A University Education
  • Wilson, Andrew: The Ukraine Crisis, What It Means For The West

HISTORY (other)

  • Belchem, John: A New History of the Isle of Man, Vol. 5 The Modern Period 1830-1999
  • Briggs, Asa, Baron: A Social History of England
  • Browne, Harry: The Rule of British Trade Unions 1825-1914
  • Churchill, Sir Winston: A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Vol. I
  • Crosby, Alan: Preston Gould, England’s Greatest Carnival
  • Thomas, Gordon: Inside British Intelligence
  • Hibbert, Christopher: A Social History of the English 1066-1945
  • Jones, Terry: Who Murdered Chaucer?
  • Laidler, Keith: The Head of God, The Lost Treasure of the Templars
  • Morfitt, Paul & Wells, Malcolm: Hull Corporation Buses*
  • Sandbrook, Dominic: Never Had It So Good
  • Stead, Neville: Kingston-upon-Hull, Images of a Rich Transport Heritage
  • Street, Sean: A Remembered Land, Recollections of Country Life 1880-1914

LINGUISTICS

  • Burrow, John Anthony: A Book of Middle English
  • Oxford
    • Dictionary of Idioms
    • Dictionary of Quotations & Proverbs Vol. I
  • Parkinson, Judy: I Before E
  • Taggart, Caroline & Wines, J. A.: My Grammar & I

LOCOMOTION

  • Allan, Ian: Railway Liveries 1923-1947
  • Atterbury, Paul: Discovering Britain’s Lost Railways
  • Morrison, G. W. & Whiteley, J. S.: Profile of the Deltics
  • Jones, Edgar: The Penguin Guide to the Railways of Britain
  • Ross, David: The Illustrated History of British Steam Railways

ROYAL FAMILY

  • Burns, Michael: The Queen’s Flight
  • Fraser, Lady Antonia: The Warrior Queens: Boadicea’s Chariot
  • Glenconner, Anne, Baroness: Lady in Waiting
  • Green, Candida Lycett & Wales, Charles, Prince of: The Garden At Highgrove
  • Junor, Penny: The Duchess, Camilla Parker Bowles
  • Kent, Princess Michael of: Crowned in a Far Country
  • Langley, Philippa & Jones, Michael: The Search for Richard III, The King’s Grave
  • Lisle, Leanda de: Tudor, The Family Story
  • Low, Valentine: Courtiers, The Hidden Power Behind the Crown
  • Mayer, Catherine: Charles, The Heart of a King
  • Phillips, Charles: Kings & Queens of Great Britain
  • Plumb, Sir John Harold: The First Four Georges
  • Rhodes, Margaret: The Final Curtsey
  • Weir, Alison: Katherine Swynford

SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY & IDEAS

  • Attenborough, Sir David: Life on Earth
  • Darwin, Charles & Leakey, Richard: The Illustrated Origin of Species
  • Dawkins, Richard
    • The Extended Phenotype
    • The Greatest Show On Earth
  • Freeman, Betty Jo; Ornitz, Edward M. & Tanguay, Peter E.: Autism, Diagnosis, Current Research & Management
  • Garner, Alan: The Voice That Thunders
  • Harari, Yuval Noah: Homo Deus, A Brief History of Tomorrow
  • Shennan, Stephen: Genes, Memes & Human History

SECOND WORLD WAR

Churchill manages to appear on this list twice as an author and twice as a subject.

  • Beevor, Sir Anthony
    • D-Day
    • Stalingrad
  • Bryant, Sir Arthur: Triumph in the West
  • Bryant, Sir Chris: The Glamour Boys
  • Cawthorne, Nigel: Fighting Them on the Beaches
  • Churchill, Sir Winston: The Second World War, Vol. I
  • Faulks, Sebastian: The Vintage Book of War Stories
  • Felton, Mark: Zero Night
  • Gillies, Midge: The Barbed-Wire University
  • Levine, Joshua: Dunkirk, The History Behind The Major Motion Picture
  • Lomax Eric: The Railway Man
  • Roberts of Belgravia, Andrew, Baron: The Storm of War
  • Trigg, Jonathan: D-Day Through German Eyes
  • Wilson, Kevin: Men of Air, The Doomed Youth of Bomber Command

TELEVISION

  • Jay, Sir Antony & Lynn, Jonathan: The Diaries of the Right Hon. James Hacker Vol. II (Yes, Prime Minister)
  • Lloyd, John & Mitchinson, John: The Second Book of General Ignorance (QI)
  • McCann, Graham: The Story of a Television Classic (Dad’s Army)
  • Patterson, Dan: Only Book You’ll Ever Need (Mock the Week)
  • Porter, Richard: And On That Bombshell (Top Gear)

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Automobile Association:
    • 250 Tours of Britain
    • Book of British Villages
  • Lewis, Oliver: The Orwell Tour
  • Jordison, Sam & Kieran, Dan: Crap Towns Returns
  • Marshall, Enid Ann: General Principles of Scots Law
  • Which?: Book of Tax 1985/86
  • Wood, Michael: In Search of Shakespeare

*Unfortunately I left this one for some weeks in the boot of my car and upon eventually retrieving it I discovered the floor was damp. I can’t put it back on the shelf until the mold has been treated. (UPDATE 3rd February – I found another copy of Beningbrough Hall in a different charity shop for half the price at which I bought the first one.)
**These were purchased as a set for £15. Carrying them out of the shop was a bit tricky. I also acquired Volume 9, Sauron Defeated, as a gift in 2020. These may technically belong in the non-fiction section as the series constitutes more of a literary making-of documentary than a pure immersive story.

An Evening with Philippa Gregory

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I have virtually visited the National Archives many times to hear talks from authors of historical fact. This time I got to see an author of historical fiction.

Shikha Sharma, the Events Manager, introduced the talk as part of the “What’s Online?” series. The interview was primarily centred on Dawnlands, part of the Fairmile series taking place in England in the seventeenth century, but there were questions and observations about Gregory’s other works as well.

Gregory said that a lot of people think they don’t know the Stuarts very well, and that it is much easier to convince publishers to print books about the Tudors. It was the notion of a family story developing into global affairs that got them interested.

Sharma reminded us that the talk was part of the Treason exhibition. The accusation of treason was the state’s supreme weapon to suppress rebellion and scrub out subversive ideas. She asked about the character of Ned Ferryman, who sticks to his personal ideals throughout but is considered a traitor by the law. Gregory said Ned was an old Cromwellian soldier who thought he was fighting for a new world of liberty. None of them could have predicted the restoration of the king so soon. Most of Cromwell’s soldiers were pardoned by Charles II, but those who had been directly involved in his father’s execution were pursued across the world. Ned is contrasted with Lyvia, who joins a long line of ambitious, manipulative women (nearly always Catholic and Italian), ingratiating herself at court, with occasional warm feelings never prioritised. Gregory said it was always helpful to have someone who can observe important historical events.

Sharma asked why it was important to tell these stories, and how the research is done. Gregory said that the life stories of lower-class women were not often recorded except as character assassinations when they stepped out of line, official records often differing sharply from personal accounts. Around 1660-80 there was a prominent increase in the number of women writing and publishing. The range of subjects on which books can be written was widened by the English Marxist historians of the 1950s. Each character presents a different research problem – she could find only two biographies about Mary of Modena, both very old and out of print. The working-class characters are usually composites from historical records rather than directly based on specific individuals. Her favourite character is always the one she’s just finished working on. Gregory covers her study with maps and drawings relevant to the book she’s writing, meaning she redecorates for each new book. She doesn’t want to delay the creative process for research – typically each new book takes 18-24 months in all, though by now she has a large stockpile of research from all the books she’s done before. We are separated from the Stuarts by generations of Whig historians, but you can often find hidden treasures in local museums.

Sharma noted that the books were prone to “painterly” descriptions, and asked if that was deliberate. Gregory said that if you pick up any historical fiction you know the author’s narrative voice. One’s idea of historical Venice is heavily mediated by Canaletto, as is London by Gustave Doré.

On the topic of historical accuracy and the grand sweep of her plots, she said that she doesn’t plan much for the series – it’s dictated by the real history but she has to decide as she goes along how her characters fit into it. Most family lineages start as peasants in the mud, much as they’d like to be aristocrats. If somebody points out an error in a book she corrects it in the next edition. She claims this has only happened 3-4 times in over thirty publications.

Sharma often asked questions from the audience but she did not name the members and often merged several similar questions together. I asked how close to the present day Gregory would consider setting her books. She said she had originally considered taking the Fairmile series as late as 1920, where British society was plagued by a fear of moral decay after the First World War and a sense that the prosperity of empire had reached its limits. Her plan had been to write two books per century, but she now finds herself writing four or five which may require the breadth of her series to be reduced.

The obvious question to ask of these kinds of authors is when they would go if they could travel through time. Gregory said she was less interested in specific eras than in solving historical mysteries, such as the Princes in the Tower or Amy Robsart.

Sharma asked specifically about the baby in the warming pan. Gregory said we know what happened in the birthing chamber because James VII was forced to hold a public inquiry. Princesses Mary and Anne both claimed to believe the story in order to justify the later coup, but the books written now cannot present it as fact.