In this absorbing book, Nicholas Bateman draws together 70 poems spanning 35 centuries, all of which had become lost before being rediscovered by archaeologists or archivists. Ranging from epic texts to fragments, they include religious and romantic writings, as well…
The MHM award-winning author and publisher on meeting Hilary Mantel, and why Abraham Lincoln is his hero.
By the time you read this, February fill dyke will be over for another year and March will (perhaps) have come in like a lion. Sherds is always glad when winter is over, but in the depths of the cold, dark, and grey weeks of January and February there is one sure way to find warmth and consolation – by reaching for a book called Next to Nature, an anthology of the ‘Word from Wormingford’ diary columns that Ronald Blythe wrote for many years for the Church Times.
Frank Richards holds a unique place in military writing, for several reasons. His book Old Soldiers Never Die is reckoned to be among the finest war memoirs ever produced, and one of very few to be written by a private soldier. Richards was himself a rarity, having survived active service from the beginning of the First World War in 1914 right through to its conclusion in November 1918.
Any novelist approaching a publisher with an idea for a series of stories centred around a cowardly, bullying racist, who is also a serial philanderer, would nowadays be very quickly shown the door. Yet George MacDonald Fraser achieved celebrity and surprising academic respect for just such a series, which consisted of 12 books published between 1969 and 2005.
REVIEW BY ANNA GARNETT The Cambridge Elements: Ancient Egypt series delves into wider Egyptological themes and debates in fresh ways, beyond traditional approaches. Specialist authors collate primary source materials to illustrate complex themes in a way that readers can easily…
REVIEW BY GERALD LALONDE Activity of the Earth’s tectonic plates affects geography, and geography affects the activity of humans. Sliding of the Africa–Arabia plate under the Eurasia plate in the Miocene and Oligocene ages raised mountains from the Pyrenees in…
With Marc DeSantis
REVIEW BY SG In the 1800s, a papyrus scroll was discovered in Luxor. The text, a complete version of The Teaching of Ptahhatp, was copied out in the late Middle Kingdom, but originates from the Fifth Dynasty reign of king…
Among the many treasures recovered by archaeologists and antiquarian collectors from Egypt are papyrus copies of a remarkable text written more than 4,000 years ago: The Teaching of Ptahhatp. Bill Manley investigates this often-overlooked survival from ancient Egypt and one vizier’s contributions to the dawn of literature.
REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK Edward J Watts, Professor of History at San Diego University, is not a fan of politicians who claim that society is rotten and only they can make it better. This claim, however, is nothing new: the…
Just over 30 years after the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, a young reporter who had never heard a shot fired in anger managed to produce a literary classic that not only captured the intensity and confusion of the bitter…
Your thoughts on issues raised by CA.
The museum will be set within the archaeological remains of The Curtain Playhouse – once home to Shakespeare’s theatre company
Review by Lucy Shipley This book is very clearly a passion project, the result of a lifetime’s love for and engagement with the Etruscan past. It provides a rare opportunity to hear the views of a specialist from another discipline,…
Review by Rosalind Love The engagingly lyrical writing of Eleanor Parker has gained many admirers through her website ‘A Clerk of Oxford’, which gently introduced readers to the rich literature, folklore, and religion of early medieval England. Her latest book…
REVIEW: CALUM HENDERSON The new German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, which arrived on Netflix last autumn, pulls no punches in its depiction of the savage violence of World War I. In the film,…
The treatment of Tennyson and Chaucer stands as a warning to us all not to adopt similarly reductive techniques in our interpretations of history, heritage, and archaeology.
The new All Quiet on the Western Front will, I’m sure, be popular and, like the British feature film 1917 (directed by Sam Mendes), will bring the horror and futility of the war to a new generation.
La Débâcle prefigures both the changing nature of warfare, and the ongoing struggle of France’s national identity. Within 22 years, another generation would be sacrificed defending their homeland.
The award, presented annually since 1999, focuses on non-fiction writing, ‘bringing the best in intelligent reflection on the world to its new readers’
Today, we live in a world of too much information: one in which a staggering 231,400,000 emails are sent out on average every single minute, according to the consumer data company Statista, along with countless million more text messages and…
Production of All Quiet on the Western Front took place in the spring of 2021, with filming in Belgium, Germany, and the Czech Republic.
These days, the term ‘philhellenism’ (literally, the love of all things Greek) is perhaps most often associated with the Romantic poets and thinkers of the late 18th and 19th centuries – a period during which a ‘new cult of the…
Review by CH Ancient remains and ghostly narratives often coincide in the popular imagination, providing fruitful inspiration for chilling tales. This anthology of 12 short stories has been curated by archaeological historian Amara Thornton, of the University of London, and…
Review by Lucia Marchini. The myth of Heracles, his heroic strength and ability to meet seemingly insurmountable challenges, has proven an enduringly popular one. Emperors and kings made use of his mighty image, and he was even the subject of…
Zeus is the king of the gods. But who was his queen?
What buddies could you prefer to a faithful wife? What brothers can you imagine skipping out on her for? A wife’s more trustworthy than friends, more faithful than a brother, and a beautiful bride even beats your mom for loyalty.
The letters form part of the Honresfield Library, a private collection of manuscripts and books associated with some of the greatest writers in English and Scottish literature.
And here’s another point to take note of, that not everything people laugh at is witty.
Its contents are written in Latin, Scots, and Gaelic, and include contemporary annals, poetry, lists of Scottish kings and battles, and chronicles recording the deaths of prominent members of Highland society.
And pretty Samos, and the palace of Croesus at Sardis,What of Smyrna and Colophon – better or worse than their fame?Or are they all as dirt beside the Campus and the Tiber’s stream?Or does one of the cities of Attalus…
The great epic by Roman poet Virgil (or Vergil; 70-19 BC) became an instant classic. His Aeneid was celebrated by other poets and the imperial family, and taught in schools in antiquity (indeed, it is still taught in some schools…
Dominic Green leads a tour travelling in the footsteps of the accomplished writer, scholar and soldier Patrick Leigh Fermor around Southern Greece
February 7th marks the anniversary of novelist Charles Dickens’ birth. But how might archaeology offer a new chapter to his blockbusting London slum story, Oliver Twist? David Saxby, of Museum of London Archaeology, explains all.