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What to read next The latest history books reviewed

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Pod Catriona Pennell WL

First World War

First World War poets: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Pod Sarah Churchwell WL

Gone with the Wind: how a 1936 novel explains modern America . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Pod Geoffrey Roberts WL

Stalin’s library: inside the mind of a dictator . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Pod Emma Smith WL

General History

Powerful pages: the beguiling history of books . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A Maria Spilsbury painting of a group sat at a drawing room table

Regency romance and a real-life Anne Elliot

Nisha Katona and Samuel Pepys

History hero Nisha Katona chooses Samuel Pepys (1633–1703)

Book cover of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four: to the future or to the past?

Clare Jackson with her Wolfson History Prize winning book, Devil-land

General History

The story of England’s turbulent Stuart century wins the Wolfson History Prize 2022

George Orwell is known to have made numerous broadcasts for the BBC during his career at the corporation, but no recordings have survived. Early radio was treated as a live medium, with broadcasts rarely kept for posterity. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Your guide to George Orwell and his visions of dystopia

Elizabeth Gaskell – “Mrs Gaskell” – was instrumental in bringing the unpleasant implications of industrialisation to the public conscious. (Photo by Getty Images)

Elizabeth Gaskell: a voice of the Victorians

A portrait of William Shakespeare

General History

History quiz – language and literature

Oscar Wilde pictured around 1882.

Oscar Wilde’s tragic end

Robert Louis Stevenson, the 19th-century English poet and novelist perhaps best known for his books 'Treasure Island' and the 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson: novelist, playwright, poet, traveller

A woman reading a vintage thesaurus

Q&A Who wrote the first thesaurus?