Illustration of a Medieval Scribe

Literature

Virginia Woolf, writer and critic. (Image by Getty Images)

Virginia Woolf: a brief guide to the writer's life

George Edalji and the Great Wyrley killings: a real-life Sherlock Holmes mystery

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: poet, activist, trailblazer, runaway

Medieval forgeries

Novelist Kate Mosse on The City of Tears

Historians have chosen their favourite historical novels.

22 of the best historical fiction novels to help you escape to the past

This image from the Nibelungenlied manuscript shows Pilgrim welcoming Kriemhild, a fictional character described as his neice in the text (Photo by Alamy)

The forged texts of the Middle Ages: why Europe's holy men turned to counterfeiting

Actor Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster in James Whale's classic 1931 film

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: the birth of a gothic monster

‘Inkhorn’ was the term for an inkwell made out of a small horn and became a nickname for the new words being created by playwrights and poets, such as William Shakespeare. (Photo by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)

The evolution of the English language

Extract from Domesday Book.

Your guide to the Domesday Book: the most important document in English history?

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie in profile: facts about her life

Bizarre books and macabre manuscripts

A portrait of Samuel Pepys, English writer and diarist. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Samuel Pepys

Charles Dickens: prison reformer, scourge of capitalists, champion of the poor

A WW2 story of survival

Jane Austen's fiction: an accurate portrayal of life in Georgian England?

Alfred Nobel (Bettmann/Getty Images)

The history of the Nobel Prizes

'Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs' by Camilla Townsend

New take on Aztec history revealed as winner of the 2020 Cundill History Prize

Scrooge and Marley's ghost

Q&AWhy do we say ‘Bah Humbug’ and what does it mean?

Ethiopia 1935: The real history behind The Shadow King

A 19th-century engraving of Francis Grose

History heroSusie Dent chooses Francis Grose (1731–1791)

Robert Harris on V2, historical fiction and WW2

British mystery writer Agatha Christie, c1926.

The mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie

Women in Greek myths

Ian Fleming, British author and creator of the James Bond character

James Bond in real life: where did Ian Fleming's inspirations come from?

Shakespeare: everything you wanted to know

Bernard Cornwell on The Last Kingdom’s finale and the next Sharpe

The time travelling Tudor: Anne Boleyn’s most surprising representations in film, TV and literature

The Knights of the Round Table are that the heart of many Arthurian legends

Who were the Knights of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, and where does the Holy Grail fit in?

Author Kate Summerscale (Photo by Fran Monks)

A 1930s ghost hunt