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Alison Weir: Every Child Should Read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe



For their 225th anniversary, W. H. Smith have asked authors to write about their favourite children's book. You can read my blog piece here:
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AN INTERVIEW WITH ALISON WEIR (2017)

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MY LIFE IN BOOKS, 2016



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SURREY LIFE, 2015



Chapter and Verse on History

How a passion for history transformed a civil service manager into a best-selling author, why we can't get enough of the Tudors and just one good example of why teenagers should do what their mothers say. Alison Weir talks to Claire Saul
If the Through the Keyhole cameras were allowed to visit Alison Weir's Surrey address, the panel would have no trouble in identifying either the nature of the homeowner's career or the driving passion behind it. Row upon row of reference books - including multiple editions of the many titles penned by the lady herself, historical prints on the walls and even cushions bearing the portraits of six famous wives bear witness to the author's considerable expertise.
Alison, who has lived in Carshalton for twenty years, is one of our best-selling and most admired historians, whose writing career has seen sales of 2.7 million books to date. And it all started, rather inauspiciously, with a doctor's note.
"I was fourteen and off sick and the doctor signed me off school for a week," Alison recalls. "My mother told me to go and get a book from the library next to the surgery. My parents had always encouraged me to read when I was young, and she was upset because I had stopped reading books and was reading comics and pop magazines instead.
"I was attracted by the cover of a book called Henry's Golden Queen, by Lozania Prole about Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. At home I devoured it in two days - they couldn't get me out of the chair! It was really trashy, but I was just absolutely hooked by this incredible story. When I went back to school I went straight to the history books in the library to find out what happened next."
And so a lifelong fascination began, first budding with the teenager's compilation of a three-volume history of the Tudors complete with contemporary sources, family trees mapped out on rolls of wallpaper, projects, plays, records of snippets of useful information and even a biography of Anne Boleyn.
"My mother really encouraged it. She was on her own then and there was not much money, but I remember that she scraped enough together to take me to Hampton Court Palace and Hever Castle in Kent. Of course there was no Internet or anything like that then. It was also harder to get books so my early writing is quite patchy, However I started the work then that actually became my first published book in 1989, Britain's Royal Families. It went through eight editions over 22 years before I actually submitted it for publication."
Alison originally trained as a history teacher but became disillusioned with the education system and joined the Civil Service, where she worked for nine years before becoming a full-time mother to her son John and daughter Kate (named for Katherine of Aragon) in 1983. She started writing again in earnest once her children began nursery, sealing her first publishing deal after several attempts in 1988, and writing alongside running her own school for children with learning difficulties.
In 1997, with The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Lancaster and York: The Wars of the Roses and Children of England: the Heirs of King Henry VIII added to her portfolio of published work, she became a full-time writer. That portfolio has expanded considerably over the last eighteen years, now tallying twenty-one books, with the twenty-second, The Lost Tudor Princess, on Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, due later this year. In the pipeline too are six novels on Henry VIII's wives, starting with Katherine of Aragon, to be published in 2016. The public fascination for the Tudor era remains unabated, fuelled by the success of historical dramas, book titles, anniversaries and events.
"This is the first period of history for which we have large range of documented source material," explains Alison. "This is due to the growth of literacy and also the growth of diplomacy, which provides us with numerous ambassadors' reports. And Henry VIII's matrimonial affairs, particularly his Great Matter, become a legitimate matter of public interest. It was controversial then and it remains controversial now. Yet although we have much information, there is still quite a lot we don't know for certain, and so there is huge room for discussion and debate, and historians can differ wildly on it.
"This is also a period for which we have an amazing visual record. We have the remains of marvellous palaces such as Hampton Court, and vivid portraiture, thanks to great artists such as Lucas Horenbout and Hans Holbein. It is an era of magnificence and conspicuous display and I think people find it totally fascinating."
But for all the information available to us on the Tudor royals and their court, Alison believes that there is still plenty of mileage for new work in this well-mined area of history. She has revisited the research for her original 1991 book on Henry and his matrimonial affairs and updated it with new observations and facts plus brand new evidence that has come to light. Anne Boleyn is a case in point, although guests at her September talk in Richmond shouldn't hold their breath for the "big reveal".
"I have found something quite startling about her but you will have to wait for my book to find out what that is!" Alison laughs. "When I wrote The Lady in the Tower in 2009 I studied the four months before Anne's fall in unprecedented detail. When I looked at the source material I realised that people hadn't mined it properly and that what it was telling us actually puts a rather different complexion on what was happening at the time. I also found other new evidence, such as the fact that the swordsman who performed her execution had been sent for before her trial."
Alison greatly enjoys her talks, which take her to speak to enthralled audiences all over the country. This month she is talking on Elizabeth I at the National Archives in Kew, an historical character for whom, above all, she professes great admiration.
"She was a great survivor, a woman in a male dominated age who inherited a bankrupt kingdom. She was a bastard, a heretic and a usurper in the eyes of Catholic Europe, yet forty-five years later, she was still there! That is incredible, it really is. She was flawed, like any other person, but she was a great and inspirational queen. In her relationship with Robert Dudley, the subject of my novel The Marriage Game, I show how in her mind she veered - she would get so far and then pull back. I think that she was damaged psychologically. As an historian I can only go so far with that, but in a novel I can explore it and provide an explanation."
"I love doing my talks because it means that I can meet people who are as passionate about history as I am, discuss it with them and get a feel for what they think. For me, speaking at Hampton Court Palace is the ultimate place to speak. I remember the first time I spoke in the Great Hall there and I was thinking, - What can I do now? This is it."
"I'll be talking there again this month. - The Prince Expected in Due Season- is about Henry VIII's quest for a son. It will be about my fourth or fifth talk in the Great Hall now and I have to pinch myself. It is still hard to believe that it is really happening!"

My Surrey

Home
We moved to Carshalton because we had relatives here going back on both sides of the family to the 1920s, and my cousin lives here too. We thought it was a great area in which to bring children up and had a lovely villagey feel. In 2002, we moved to Scotland for two years, but had to come back!
Favourite View
The Hog's Back near Guildford is absolutely beautiful, also Box Hill is lovely. I can remember when I was living in London and working at the top of Archway Tower in the early 1980s; on a clear day you could see the North Downs, the Surrey Downs and even the faint line of the South Downs too. I used to yearn to be out there. Whenever I see the Surrey Downs now I think, "Yes, I got here!"
Best Place to shop
M&S in Sutton! It is very accessible, just ten minutes up the road and it is a very good shop. While I like Kingston too, it is a bit of a hike from here and the car park I used to use has closed.
Favoured Restaurant
Il Toscano, near Sutton Station. It is the most wonderful Italian restaurant. We measure all restaurants against it, it is so good and they know us well.
Best Place to visit
Hampton Court Palace! It draws me all the time. I think you could spend a lifetime studying the palace and you would never find out everything about it. It is just pure magic as far as its historical appeal is concerned.
Preferred Relaxing spot
Home! Where else? Rankin and I watch a couple of hours of DVDs or catch up on television dramas or films after I stop work at 9pm. I often go back on the computer late at night and I'm enjoying going through the BBC's collection of Your Paintings at the moment.



MY TOP TEN FAVOURITE BOOKS
Alison Weir, 2014




Norah Lofts' Suffolk Trilogy: The Town House, The House at Old Vine and The House at Sunset (1959-63)
This is the history of England evolving through the generations who lived in an old Suffolk house from 1381 to 1956. Beautifully written, thrilling and chilling, and much underrated. I have to keep re-reading it.
Tudor and Jacobean Portraits by Roy Strong (2 vols., HMSO, 1969)
I bought this set with a legacy from my grandfather, and it inspired over forty years of studying Tudor portraiture, a great love of mine. Without Roy Strong's pioneering work the genre would never have been so well understood.
Costume and Fashion, vols. 2 and 3 (Medieval and Tudor) by Herbert Norris (1927, 1938)
Norris wrote and illustrated his encyclopaedic works decades ago, but they remain a fabulous source of information and fascination, and in their own way are minor works of art, in which I love browsing.
The Complete Peerage (6 vols., ed. G.H. White et al., 1910-1959)
This fuelled my early interest in royal and aristocratic genealogy, and I have spent many happy hours dipping into it over the years. The amount of information available is staggering.
Agnes Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England (8 vols., 1851)
When I was a teenager and first became passionate - and a little romantic - about history, I was desperate to get hold of a set of Strickland's books, and in those days they weren't easy to find. Years later I acquired a set of my own. Hopelessly outdated they may be, but they bear testimony to pioneering female scholarship in an age dominated by men, and are worth reading for the prose alone.
Katherine by Anya Seton (1954)
Still my all-time favourite historical novel, and I know that many people feel the same way about it. It charms me as much now as it did when I was fifteen, and it inspired me back then to write historical fiction. It's a benchmark for the genre, and vividly evokes the world of the fourteenth century.
The Royal Palaces of Tudor England by Simon Thurley (1993)
This book is one of my treasured possessions. Its abundant illustrations and treasure trove of information on the subject open many portals onto a lost age. A bible for anyone who wants to understand the power politics and social customs of the Tudor age.
London: Hidden Interiors by Philip Davies (English Heritage, 2012)
I bought this stunningly illustrated book as a gift and had to keep it and buy another copy! It offers fabulous insights into the hidden gems of historic London. London is my city - this book is sheer joy to me.
Midnight is a Lonely Place by Barbara Erskine (1994)
I love reading about the supernatural, and time-slip novels, and the mistress of both is Barbara Erskine. This one is a great page-turner, horror mounts, and the suspense is gripping. An outstanding book from a gifted author, and one I return to again and again.
Ghost Song by Sarah Rayne (2009)
I am fearfully fascinated by derelict theatres - nothing would induce me to enter one - so I was deliciously terrified by this spine-tingling tale of a dark secret hidden for over a century.


ALISON WEIR'S DESERT ISLAND BOOKS, 2013

Pantomime Stories (published by Ward Lock)
As a child, I was crazy about fairy tales, especially about queens, princesses and fairies. I used to borrow this illustrated collection again and again from my local children's library. I never owned a copy, but recently bought a rare copy on eBay. I was surprised at how small the book was compared to my memories of it, but the delicate drawings evoked magical memories. Nowadays I spend a lot of time writing books about queens and princesses.

Henry's Golden Queen by Lozania Prole
When I was fourteen my mother took me for the first time to an adult library. There I found this book, a novel about Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. I curled up in a chair with it and read and read. I could not put it down: I had to know what happened next. A whole new wonderful world was opening before me. I have to admit that it was not just the historical tale that seduced me, but the sex. Of course, this was 1965, and what seemed exceedingly daring then to one who had never read an adult novel would appear very tame now, but I was agog: did people really carry on like that in those days? Curiosity sent me hastening to my school library to find out the truth in the history books - and I've been finding it out ever since.

Katherine by Anya Seton
I first read this back in the Sixties, when I was fifteen. Four decades later it inspired me to write my biography of Katherine Swynford. It's a haunting, tenderly drawn love story set against the rich tapestry of England in the age of chivalry, and every sentence is a joy to read. This is one of my all-time favourite historical novels. It is written with such integrity, and I regard it as a benchmark for historical novels. Anya Seton spent four years researching it. Given the sources available to her at the time, it's a tour de force.

The Town House/The House at Old Vine/The House at Sunset by Norah Lofts
It's a bit cheeky to choose a trilogy, but these three novels form a continuous story, and they are the most outstanding historical novels that I have ever read. Effectively they recount the history of England, seen through the eyes of each generation of the owners of a medieval house, from 1380 through to the 1950s. There are wonderful vivid characters, sinister undercurrents, and numerous different story lines and themes. Sometimes there is a gap between the stories, and only later do we discover what has happened in the interim, and there are dark hints of sinister deeds, at which Lofts was a master. She remains my favourite author - I have all 63 of her books. This trilogy is a joy, and I'm proud to say that I've been instrumental in getting it republished.

The Dictionary of National Biography
I first discovered the single-volume version of this monumental work in my school library. At that time I was busily researching royal genealogy, so it was a wonderful find, and I have never forgotten the pleasure I had trawling through it. Some years later I came across the DNB in the shape of all its individual volumes - that was heaven, and I spent many happy days in reference libraries going through it. I now own a set. It has been superseded by the Oxford DNB, but I've yet to find fifteen feet of shelf space for the new version.

Ghost Song by Sarah Rayne
If you want a compelling page-turner with an original and authentic setting, look no further. I am first in the queue whenever Sarah Rayne publishes a new title. She should be up there among the mega-sellers. Ghost Song is set in an old music hall that mysteriously closed in 1914, and it is both thrilling and chilling. `All theatres are haunted',` Rayne writes, then goes on to tell of a modern surveyor who gradually uncovers the building`s sinister secret and then becomes menaced by its past. What is the truth about the ghost, and the actor who suddenly vanished? This is a powerful rollercoaster of a novel, with robustly drawn characters and a fiendishly twisting plot. You`ll be sleeping with the lights on after reading this one - Sweet dreams!

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
An absolute treasure that should be on everyone's bookshelf and dipped into frequently. Every line is a masterpiece. Surely Shakespeare was the greatest writer of all time. His wisdom is immeasurable, his prose and poetry things of infinite beauty. Yes, he is for all time, and not just of an age - his genius is universal.



ALISON WEIR: FAVOURITE BOOKS
From B.B.C. History Magazine, 2013



My favourite history title of the year so far is Edward III and the Triumph of England by the award-winning Richard Barber, one of our finest medieval historians. But this is no dry overview of the Hundred Years War; it is a sound, lively and engagingly detailed book about the individuals who fought in that war, of knights, chivalry, fashion, literature and the enduringly fascinating private lives of everyone from queens to freebooters. It will satisfy academics and history buffs alike. I cannot praise it highly enough.
It's a huge challenge choosing my favourite history book of all time, as I have shelves full of favourites. Yet I have to opt for The Complete Peerage, a veritable treasure trove of information that is a must for every historian - and anyone who (like me) is captivated by royal and aristocratic genealogy. I first discovered The Complete Peerage when I was just fifteen - and I've been discovering wonderful things in it ever since.
The history book I'm most looking forward to in the coming months is Tracy Borman's Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction. Having always been intrigued by witchcraft and the supernatural, this is a must for me, and all the more so because the story it relates is a historical one - that of the notorious witches of Belvoir. Tracy Borman, the joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, is a fine historian, and in her capable hands this grim tale will be told well.

Kate Williams also contributed her choices, and was kind enough to pick my Elizabeth of York:





To hear me speaking on Novel Approaches: Writing Historical Fiction at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, in November 2011, go to:

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Sarah Gristwood's fiction debut, The Girl in the Mirror, this book sets a new benchmark for historical novels. Entrancing, compelling, and beautifully written, this is a fabulous book, bursting with integrity and authenticity, with wonderful period detail. Reading this, I felt the characters come to life as never before, and I was mesmerised by their story. The Girl in the Mirror is the historical novel as literary fiction - and damned good literary fiction at that.
I have long known that Sarah Gristwood is a formidable talent, and I've been delighted to endorse her non-fiction works in the past. In this novel, she evokes the Elizabethan period in stunning detail. As a historian, I'm familiar with all the characters, and I can say with surety that they are brilliantly drawn - Essex, Cecil, Elizabeth I, Katherine Carey - Sarah has captured them all perfectly. I find the detail breathtaking, not to mention her beautiful, elegant use of language and the way she conveys the poignancy of the human condition. Overall, it's a very reflective book, and unbearably sad in parts. And because it is so beautifully written, it is doubly shocking when the reader encounters vivid descriptions of violence. The story builds to a heart-rending climax - the passages towards the end are especially riveting - and stayed with me long after I had finished it. I particularly liked the way in which all the strands in the legend of the Essex ring suddenly came together.
Sarah Gristwood's knowledge of the Tudor period is extensive, and her research impressively comprehensive. She has huge talent and writes with integrity, and deserve the success that I am sure is coming her way.

(For my reviews of Sarah Gristwood's Blood Sisters, see the Lancaster and York page.)


INTERVIEW WITH JEAN GLOCK, 2012
Jean is one of the USA's foremost travel agents and consultants.

Alison, you are such a successful and prolific author, what prompted you to start your own tour company? Clearly not to fill your free time!
I worked with English Heritage on many of its popular "Tours through Time", and with Smithsonian Journeys in Washington, for whom I developed and led the "Tudor Tapestry" tour of Tudor England in 2010. I met the most wonderful people, had so much fun and gained such a lot from sharing my love of history that I decided to develop and run my own tours, based on my books.

I was privileged to join you on part of your first and all of your second Tudors tour. I was amazed at the diversity of my fellow travelers who were your fans. What do you think attracts travelers (and readers of course) to the Tudor period?
The Tudor age, from Henry VII's appropriation of the crown in 1485 to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, spans what is arguably the most exciting and colourful period in English History. Great political and religious changes witnessed England's transition into a sophisticated modern state. People are attracted to the period because it produced an impressive array of dynamic characters who still capture the imagination today: great statesmen and clergy - Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas More, and William Cecil - swashbuckling sailors and explorers such as Drake and Raleigh, and poets and playwrights, among them Thomas Wyatt, the headstrong Earl of Surrey, John Donne and William Shakespeare. It was also an age of dramatic events, great rivalries and perilous religious reform, all revolving around the magnificent Tudor court. And at its very centre there were the Tudor monarchs themselves - vivid, larger-than-life characters.
Thanks to the growth of diplomacy and literacy, the Tudor period is the first for which we have wonderful source material on the private lives of our kings and queens. It was also an age of magnificence, exemplified in the remains of sumptuous palaces and evocative portraits by Hans Holbein and other court painters. This is a tremendous visual record, unprecedented in English history, and it brings to life key historical figures as never before. On our tours, we aim to take our guests to places where they can see these wonderful survivals.

Your personal contacts at all the sites afforded us extraordinary exclusive access and introductions. Do you plan your itineraries to insure that your travelers have that exclusive access?
Yes, visitors love to see something behind the scenes and get exclusive access to areas not normally open to visitors. Having worked over the years with so many of the historic sites we visit, we are always looking to give our guests something extra. This is particularly the case in our 2013 Royal Palaces Tour in which we are working with Historic Royal Palaces. Guests will meet historians and expert speakers at each palace and enjoy privileged access behind the scenes, including the Albert Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle, Sir Thomas More's cell at the Tower of London and a spectacular roof top tour at Hampton Court Palace.

During the Tudors tours you and your fellow experts are available 24/7 to all the guests. This is an extraordinary opportunity for a very small group of travelers to get to know you all personally. You never seemed to tire of our endless questions about history and the process of writing history and historic fiction. Have your travelers questions ever influenced your future book topics? Or tour itineraries?
Absolutely - I love discussing history with readers and guests, and feedback is very important to AWT, especially in helping us to plan future itineraries. For example, our Tudor Treasures guests were enchanted by Harvington Hall, a tiny manor house that remains little altered since Elizabethan times. Their feedback influenced our decision to include it in Gloriana, our 2012 Elizabethan tour, both for its beauty and its historical significance. Our guests also told us that they love discussing history with me and our resident and guest historians, so we have made sure we've includes plenty of quality time for this.
History is full of wonderful stories and amazing characters. I feel very privileged to be able to bring them to life in both my non-fiction books and my novels. In both cases, I feel that an author has a responsibility to be as true to the facts as is possible. I do so appreciate support and encouragement, creative comments, and also the occasional criticisms, which I do take very seriously, and which - I hope - help me to become a better writer.

I know your 2012 Gloriana tour about Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I is sold out, but your 2013 tours look equally enticing. What sites in the 2013 tours do you find most exciting? Why? Are you accompanying all of the 2013 tours?
All of them! My greatest pleasure is taking people to historic sites that resonate with me. I will never forget the moment when, as our coach crossed the Thames, I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Hampton Court Palace is on your right," and there was this amazing collective gasp of wonder!
I will be leading the Lancaster & York and The Six Wives of Henry VIII tours so will be very much a part of the group, getting to know everyone personally and socialising in the evenings, as well as talking about history. On Royal Palaces I will be attending and speaking on two days and will join the group for two dinners. One of the reasons I'm doing these tours is that I still get excited visiting many of the places on out itinerary. Anne Boleyn's home, Hever Castle, is very popular with our guests and it's one of my very favourite places. On the Six Wives tour we will also visit Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire, where we will stay for 3 nights. Thornury resonates with history: Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn stayed there during the progress of 1535. It's the only Tudor castle in England to be open as a hotel, and it has sumptuous bedchambers, a Tudor hall and historic parkland - a truly special setting.

Do you have a highlight moment from any of your earlier tours you would like to share? ( if you don't write about it, I will add about the priest holes at Harvington Hall and meeting Michael Hodgetts AND hearing about Emma Hamilton's heaving breasts from Kate Williams as the naked bike race passed our bus in London! Or Henry VIII's rosary beads (pre Anne Boleyn of course!) at Chatsworth.
Our magical, candle-lit private evening tour of Shakespeare's Birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon was unforgettable, as was the moment when our lady guests opened their gifts at dinner at Hever Castle, and all spontaneously put on the B pendants they found in the boxes by their plates! But chiefly it was the wonderful company of groups united in a common passion for history that I will carry with me.

If you had your "dream" tour to design, apart from the wonderful ones already in the works, where would it go? Will you plan it for 2014?
I've planned it already - the Six Wives tour next year, with Gloriana and Lancaster and York running a close second.

What books are you working on now? Will we be able to join you on tours making your next books "come to life"?
I'm currently working on my next history book, the life of Elizabeth of York, the first Tudor Queen, wife to Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII. It's a poignant, suspenseful and sometimes tragic story. Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of the Yorkist King Edward IV (reigned 1461-1483), and sister of the Princes in the Tower, a lady whose life was inextricably caught up in the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses and the establishment of the usurping Tudor dynasty.
In the late fifteenth century, England was torn by dynastic wars between the Royal Houses of Lancaster and York, rival claimants for the throne. It was a period of battles and family strife, and witnessed the emergence of some of