{"id":46,"date":"2014-04-01T09:17:33","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T09:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/?p=46"},"modified":"2014-04-01T09:17:33","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T09:17:33","slug":"history-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/?p=46","title":{"rendered":"History again."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"medieval<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let me introduce you to a piece of artwork by Frances Thomas aged twelve-and-three-quarters.\u00a0 As you can see there is a lot going on in this picture, and I can assure you that all the detail is accurate. I was obsessive about detail, and still am to a certain extent. I can\u2019t move on until I know what my character is wearing, is seeing and how they\u2019re going to get about. Luckily it\u2019s so much easier when you can find stuff out in ten minutes on the internet rather than spending a morning in the library. In those days, my bible was\u00a0 the Quennell\u2019s marvellous\u00a0 History of Everyday Things in England,<\/i> which I still consult. I \u00a0was also obsessed at that time with the Middle Ages \u2013 it must have been a particular book which triggered the obsession but I can\u2019t remember now which one.<\/p>\n

As you can also see from the painting, I was more of a story teller than an artist, though in those days, I longed to be both. There was always a story or seven running through my head, though I didn\u2019t start writing them down till much much later. And of course it\u2019s obvious that without books, I wouldn\u2019t have been either. As a slightly nerdish only child, the trip to the library was one of the high points of my week. I read anything that attracted me- not so easy as in those days library books were stripped of their dust jackets and blurbs and bound in drab library bindings, so finding out what you were reading was always a bit hit-or-miss. I\u2019ve put what I can remember of my favourite childhood reading list below. I also read historical fiction as an older teenager, where it filled the gap between childhood reading and the more difficult world of adult books \u2013 then I devoured Mary Renault, \u00a0and Robert Graves\u2019s Claudius<\/i> books. I also read a lot of romantic stuff by people like Jean Plaidy and Georgette Heyer, though I was aware that these weren\u2019t quite, er, top-class.<\/p>\n

Anyway, though I shall probably wake up screaming in the middle of the night as I remember the really really<\/i> important book I\u2019ve just left out, here are my top ten childhood historical books:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rosemary Sutcliff\u00a0 – anything and everything by. But if I have to single out:<\/p>\n

Simon<\/i><\/p>\n

The Eagle of the Ninth<\/i><\/p>\n

The Armourer\u2019s House<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Geoffrey Trease\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 – again anything and everything by. But let\u2019s go for:<\/p>\n

Cue For Treason<\/i><\/p>\n

Crown of Violet.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Barbara Leonie Picard\u00a0 – Ransom For a Knight<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0 A beautifully written story by a writer whose translation of The Odyssey<\/i> was one of the seminal books of my youth.<\/p>\n

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R.D.Blackmore\u00a0 –Lorna Doone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>Oh, how many of those stories-in-my-head involved wild moonlight rides over the moors and fearful blood feuds and beautiful maidens.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dorothy M Stuart \u2013 A Child\u2019s Day Through the Ages.<\/i> Probably a little dry. But I loved these stories, especially the one about the little priestess, of which I was reminded when I later read\u00a0 Ursula le Guin\u2019s The Tombs of Atuan.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Henry Garnett\u00a0 (not Henry Treece, as I misremembered, though I enjoyed Henry Treece too)\u00a0 Thirteen Banners.<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0 Set in the days of Simon De Montfort. The usual brave children escaping with a message. Can\u2019t remember much about it now but I know it was good fun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meriol Trevor\u00a0\u00a0 Sun Faster, Sun Slower.\u00a0 <\/i>Time travel. Re-reading it recently, I realised how very Catholic it is, which I was then too, though am no longer. But the story of the escaping Jesuit priest is still very exciting.\u00a0 Meriol Trevor wrote fine poetry too, which I\u2019ll try to post on this blog some day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some historical stuff, like Flambards <\/i>and Barbara Willard\u2019s lovely Mantelmass<\/i> series didn\u2019t come out until I was too old to read them as a child. But I reckon that we children of the fifties lived through a golden age of children\u2019s historical fiction. Do let me have more of your own lists of favourites \u2013 I\u2019ve loved reading your comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Let me introduce you to a piece of artwork by Frances Thomas aged twelve-and-three-quarters.\u00a0 As you can see there is a lot going on in this picture, and I can assure you that all the detail is accurate. I was obsessive about detail, and still am to a certain extent. I can\u2019t move on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}