Illustration of a Medieval Scribe

Literature

Jane Austen

My history heroJane Austen (1775–1817).

John Sergeant

My history hero: Arthur Ransome.

The Cromwell enigma: Hilary Mantel and Diarmaid MacCulloch on Wolf Hall's complex hero.

In focus: Aesop and his fables

Photo of a remembrance poppy

First World War

Q&AWhere do the red poppies come from?

Photo of a salt cellar

Q&AWho do we say 'with a pinch of salt'?

Photo of a woman putting a finger to her lips

Q&AWhy do we say 'mum's the word'?

A portrait of Ian Lancaster Fleming, the creator of the character James Bond

The spy who loved Jamaica.

Shakespeare: 7 burning questions about his life.

Sport offered the two sides the perfect stage on which to get one over on the 'enemy', says Dominic Sandbrook. Pictured here is a queue for a football match between Arsenal and Dynamo Moscow. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Cold War in your living room.

Should we rewrite Jane Austen’s classic novels?

Books interview: Herodotus's 'The Histories'.

Languishing languages.

When did Italian replace Latin as the language of Italy?

History heroJo Brand chooses Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97).

Truth, lies and historical fiction: an interview with 'The White Queen' writer Philippa Gregory.

A portrait of Jane Austen. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Where history happened: Jane Austen.

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

My history hero: Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94).

A photograph of J Meade Falkner, c1915. He "had an extraordinary mind, the type you don't come across often," says Chris de Burgh of the novelist. (Public Domain)

My history hero: J Meade Falkner (1858-1932).

Laurence Olivier plays Richard III in the 1955 film adaptation of Shakespeare's play. In it, the controversial monarch is damned as everything from a "bottled spider" and "lump of foul deformity" to a "poisonous bunch-backed toad". (Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Why did Shakespeare revile Richard III?.

Richard II, led captive by Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), renounces the throne in Jean Creton's 'Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre Richard II' (1401-05). (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Richard II: “I find myself a traitor”.

Sue Townsend admires Charles Dickens (pictured c1960) for his battles against social injustice. (Photo by London Stereoscopic Company/Getty Images)

My history hero: Charles Dickens (1812-1870).

Dickens on the move.

Line engraving depicting the burning of Rawlins White, c1555. From a late 18th-century edition of John Foxe's 'The Book of Martyrs'. (Alamy)

The Making of Martyrs.

A portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer from an early 15th-century manuscript of the poem ‘De Regimine Principum’ by Thomas Hoccleve. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The LibraryChaucer and the idea of Englishness.

Charles Dickens: his life and works.

The LibraryA new history of England and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

My history hero: Samuel Johnson (1709-84).

The making of the King James Bible.

My history hero: Abba Kovner (1918–87).