New Red Ned Novel Out!
Greetings my well regarded readers, I hope that all is well with you and yours as we rapidly approach the Yuletide celebrations. Today I have a few announcements before we move on to the body of the blog. First I would to extend my heartfelt sympathies to the family of Jacinta Saldanha, the staff of King Edward VIII hospital and Kate Middleton the Duchess of Cambridge for the trauma and sorrow caused by the deceitful, cowardly and callous actions of a few of my fellow Australians. My personal reactions to this crime of fraud and breach of privacy is detailed in my other blog Prognostications and Pouting so for any interested I suggest you clink on the link for a quick visit.
To happier news, I would also like to announce that a new Red Ned story has been released on Amazon- The Lord of Misrule. This new volume of Red Ned Bedwell’s misadventures is a compilation of the Yuletide tales comprising The Liberties of London, The Fetter Lane Fleece and the latest story A Comfit of Rogues, all brought together into one handy volume. This will also be the first of my novels that will be committed to hard copy printing and with luck should be available by Christmas.
Now since I’ve already released prologues of all these novellas it’s pretty pointless to do so again. Instead I thought I’d put up a short list of my Tudor sources, with a brief justification as to why a majority of historical fiction writers go to such great lengths to present their story in its proper setting.
As with most writers those of us in this genre would like to take you on a journey into the past. Sometimes just a decade or two, or maybe stretching back deep into the prehistory of the Neolithic. To weave the visual and mnemonic tapestry of the tale requires a special set of talents, imagination, creativity, commitment, storytelling ability and most importantly resources to draw upon for the historical flavour and texture. Luckily in these modern times we are blessed with the wonder of the internet, which has been both an enormous boon for its quantity of information and somewhat of a peril for its varying and occasionally dubious quality. However for the serious historical fiction writer there is always the old standby resource - books. Lots of them.
Visit the home of just about any writer of this genre and no doubt you’ll find book cases packed to the gunwales of all manner and type, both fiction and non fiction. For this is the well of inspiration, the salmon of knowledge, where in we dip for the textural landscape of our setting. Such as the size and shape of the buildings, the weft of the clothing the sight and all too often smell of the era. And most of all the placement and situations of our characters, their families, friends and rivals the very nature of their conflict, adversity or experience. Without the aid of these splendid props our work would be so much the poorer, merely a thin soup of a serving, instead of a rich spicy banquet fit to stun the senses.
So as an inspiration and an example of some of the library here is a short list of the contents of my library.
The Lord of Misrule Book links
Tudor Bibliography
Tudor London
Elizabeth’s London, Liza Picard
The Riverside Gardens of Thomas More’s London, Christianson
The A-Z of Elizabethan London
The Renaissance European Painting 1400-1600, McCorquodale
Cities of the Renaissance World, Swift and Konstam
The History of London in Maps Barker and Jackson
Walking Shakespeare’s London
Shakespeare’s London
Tudor Warfare
Weapons of Warre- The Mary Rose Trust
Elizabeth’s Wars Paul, E J Hammer
The Confident Hope of a Miracle, Neil Hanson
The Great Enterprise, Mattingly
War and Society in Renaissance Europe, JR Hale
Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe, Bert S Hall.
Gunpowder, Jack Kelly
English Warfare 1511- 1642, Mark Fissel
the Military Revolution, Geoffrey Parker
Early Gunpowder Artillery, John Norris
Arms and Armour Annual, R. Held ed
Art Arms and Armour 1979-80, R Held ed.
Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, John Waldman
Osprey Publications
Henry VIII’s Army
Tudor Knights
The German Peasant Wars
Tudor Society
A Notable Discovery of Coosnage 1591, Robert Greene
The Second Part of Cony Catching 1592, Robert Greene
A Groat’s Worth of Wit 1592, Robert Greene
The Early Tudors at Home Elizabeth Burton
The Tudor Housewife, Alison Sim
Tudor Pastimes and Pleasure, Alison Sim
Food and Feast in Tudor England Alison Sim
The Tudor Law of Treason, Bellamy
Strange and Inhuman Deaths Murder in Tudor England, Bellamy
Big Chief Elizabeth, Giles Milton
Undreamed Shores, Michael Foss
Tudor Rebellions, A Fletcher and Diarmaid McCulloch
Tudor England, ST Bindoff
Beer in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Richard W Unger
Ale Beer and brewing: Women’s Work in a Changing World, Judith M Bennett
Treason in Tudor England, Lacy Baldwin Smith
The Pilgrimage of Grace, Moorhouse
English Merchant Shipping 1460-1540 Dorothy Burwash
Rethinking the Henrican Era, Herman Ed.
Foul Bills and Dagger Money R G Hamilton
Invisible Power: the Elizabethan Secret Service Alan Hayes
Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England
The Tudor Constitution, G R Elton
Authority and Disorder in Tudor Times 1485-1603, Paul Thomas
A Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England, Mortimer
The Complete works of William Shakespeare
Contested Will Who wrote Shakespeare, J Shapiro
What the Tudors Did for Us, Adam Hart-Davis
All the King’s Cooks: The Tudor Kitchens of Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace, Peter Brears
Ale Beer and Brewsters in England, Judith M. Bennett
The Cambridge History of Urban Britain Vols 1-2
The Tudor Tailor, Mikhaila and Malcolm Davies
Period Costume for Stage and Screen 1500-1800, Jean Hunnisett
The Patterns of fashion, Janet Arnold
Tudor Court
The Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Merriman
Letters to Cromwell, Cooke
The Lisle Letters, ed Muriel St Clare Bryne
Thomas More, Marius
Thomas More, Ackroyd
Thomas More, Roper and Harpsfield
Wolsey, Cavendish
The Reign of Henry VIII, Starkey
The Statesman and the Fanatic –Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More, Ridley
Rivals in Power, Starkey
A Tudor Tragedy, Lacy Baldwin Smith
The Mask of Royalty Henry VIII, Lacy Baldwin Smith
A Tudor Tragedy, Neville Williams
The Double Life of Doctor Lopez, Dominic Green
Henry VIII’s Divorce Literature and the Politics of the Printing Press, J C Warner
Great Harry, Carolly Erikson
Henry VIII The King and his Court, Alison Weir
The Children of England; The Heirs of Henry VIII Alison Weir
Elizabeth the Queen Weir
Mary Boleyn Alison Weir
The Lady in the Tower Alison Weir
The Six Wives of Henry VIII Alison Weir
Mary Tudor England’s First Queen, Whitlock
Henry VIII, Scarisbrick
Henry VIII, Bowles
The Last Days of Henry VIII, Hutchinson
Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s most notorious minister, Hutchinson
Anne Boleyn, Joan Denny
Who’s Who in Tudor England, Rouse
The Infamous Lady Rochford, Julia Fox
The Queen’s Conjurer Benjamin, Woolley
The Uncrowned Kings of England, Derek Wilson
The Tudor Queens, Loades
Elizabeth, Starkey
Elizabeth’s Women, Tracy Borman
Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, Alison Weir
Arabella England’s Lost Queen, Sarah Gristwood
My Heart is Not My Own, John Guy
Religion
The Pursuit of the Millennium, Norman Cohen
God’s Bestseller, Moynaham
Reformation Europe 1517-1559, G R Elton
Bloody Mary’s Martyrs, Ridley
Schisms in Christianity and the rise of Protestantism
Then of course we have the internet sources such as academic articles, national archives, online archives, the Guttenberg Project and university dissertations and if your keen that can take up weeks in the searching and compiling. I think we’ll leave a taste of those resources for a later occasion.
To all my readers keep safe and well in this lead up to Yuletide and unlike Red Ned quaff in moderation.
Regards Gregory House
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