Volume 73 Issue 2 February 2023

the Wife of Bath, the Ellesmere Manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, c.1410.

Are you Experienced?

Not a queen or a saint, witch or idealised lady-love, the Wife of Bath is a much-married working woman and an enthusiastic traveller.

Edda Mussolini presenting a banner at the Banco Commerciale Italiana ground at Edgware, 17 June 1934. Alamy.

The Favourite

How did Italy became enslaved by ‘a corrupt gang of warmongers’?

Ben Jones

Ghosts of Java

Indonesia’s bloody past has produced a country populated with ghosts. Now, they are sharing their stories on YouTube.

illustration from Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition carried on by Order of the British Government during the years 1835, 1836, and 1837, by F.R. Chesney, 1868.

The Land Between Rivers

All 19th-century British visitors to Mesopotamia knew that it was the birthplace of civilisation. Could steam power revive ancient greatness while also keeping Russia at bay?

Wood Engraving 5 from the Compendium Maleficarum

Meet you There

Crossroads: meeting places or religious locations plagued by devils and demons?

Three Cherokee

Discovery Channels

Thousands of Indigenous Americans travelled to Europe – voluntarily or involuntarily – from as early as the 1490s.

Silk Road

Secrets of the Silk Road

The discovery of a cave full of manuscripts on the edge of the Gobi Desert reveals the details of everyday life on the Silk Road.