Literature

From Aristotle to El Alamein, via the Silk Road and Charlemagne's vast empire, ten leading historians tell us about their best books from 2015.

Jerome de Groot muses on how authors of historical fiction try to flesh out the bare bones of history, drawing on old and new works.

Paul Cartledge argues that all historiography can be seen as fictionalised and relishes the fact that novelists breathe new life into ancient worlds.

The popularity of the Middle English poem has endured for 650 years but the question of who wrote it remains unanswered. Lawrence Warner addresses the mystery.

Literary brands, delineated characters and franchises have existed since ancient times. Why is the continuation novel enjoying a golden moment now?

Carroll’s perceived paedophilia seems to have little scholarly evidence.

In his long series of novels, Galdos presents a vision of Spanish history from Napoleonic times until the 1880s. By Douglas Hilt.

Poet Laureate from 1850, writes Joanna Richardson, Tennyson became an acknowledged interpreter of Victorian morals and politics.

Joanna Richardson describes how the diarists of the early nineteenth century wrote some highly distinctive memoirs of politics and Court life.

During the eighteenth century female authors became increasingly numerous and industrious; while as readers, writes Robert Halsband, thanks to the spread of the new circulating libraries, women began to form ‘a significant sector’ of the literary public.