Small round-up this week!
* To see or not to see? Shakespeare’s death mask on display for the first time in macabre exhibition of medical artefacts – Anyone know anything about the authenticity of the Shakespeare death mask?
* Henry VIII as King David – From the British Library’s Manuscripts blog
And a neat trailer for Nancy Bilyeau’s The Crown:
I’m a little late on this, since the first book is already out!
Books
* Nancy Bilyeau’s debut novel The Crown is now out in the US and will be out next month in the UK. Stay tuned for a guest post from Nancy soon!
* Kelly Hart’s Jane Seymour is out February 1 in the US and UK, but I haven’t heard much about this one.
* Our Man in Rome by Catherine Fletcher is about Henry VIII’s representative to the Pope during the Divorce. It is out February 2 in the UK and comes out in the US under the title The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican on June 19.
Festival
Peterborough Cathedral’s annual Katharine of Aragon Festival will run January 27 to 29 this year. More information is available on their webpage for the festival. (Note, the graphic on the page currently has last year’s dates, but if you download the program it has the correct information.)
Edited 1-18-12: I corrected the info on Our Man in Rome: Henry VIII and his Italian Ambassador – I mistakenly thought that there were two separate books coming out, when in fact there were two titles for the same book. I get fooled by that occasionally!
* BBC1 to screen War of the Roses epic – I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I’m happy to see some more historical drama on TV (especially that period) but on the other, we’ll have to deal with more distortions, misconceptions, and mistakes that need to be set straight.
* Bloody Tales of the Tower – Presented by Suzannah Lipscomb and Joe Crowley for National Geographic. Now *this* one I am unreservedly looking forward to!
* A follow-up to a story from two weeks ago, Elizabeth Taylor’s necklace containing the pearl ‘La Peregrina’ ended up selling for $11.8 million (
* Stephan Edwards of Some Grey Matter wrote to tell me of a new addition to his site, the Historia delle cose occorse nel regno
* Tanner Ritchie’s annual Holiday and New Year sale is on again! If you’re in to primary sources this is a great place to get some at a good price.
* Chatham dig finds Tudor dockyard remains
* Novel Approaches: From Academic History to Historical Fiction – The IHR had their first virtual conference on this topic and you can see all the presentations at the website.
And finally…
* If you have a few spare tens of thousands of pounds, you can bid on some late 16th century (or later) portraits of Catherine of Aragon and Katherine Parr on auction next week at Christie’s. And if you have a few spare MILLION – you can bid on some of Elizabeth Taylor’s jewelry, including La Peregrina, a pearl given to Mary I by her husband Philip of Spain. Many centuries later it was given to Taylor by her husband Richard Burton (who played Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days).
I was originally planning to save the latest news on the sequel to Hilary Mantel’s award-winning Wolf Hall until the Sunday news round-up but the news started stacking up enough that I thought it deserved a dedicated post.
The first bit of news was that the name of the sequel has been changed to Bring Up the Bodies and the previously announced title The Mirror and the Light (that I blogged about here) will be used for the third book. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that she had at least hinted that her Cromwell books might end up as a trilogy and now it seems to be the case.
News articles:
Hilary Mantel writes second sequel to Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel novel Wolf Hall will be part of a trilogy
Hilary Mantel reveals plans for Wolf Hall trilogy
And the other interesting piece of news – which isn’t really all that surprising given the success of The Tudors – HBO and the BBC are developing a mini-series based on Wolf Hall! I’m pretty optimistic that they’ll do a really good job of this although the plans are for four episodes which will mean a lot will have to be cut from the book.
News articles:
BBC and HBO line up Wolf Hall drama
HBO And BBC Developing Miniseries Based On Wolf Hall
BBC, HBO Team for ‘Wolf Hall’ Miniseries
* The Middle Ages in colour – A lovely BBC video in honor of the opening of the British Library’s Royal Manuscripts exhibition that I blogged about previously
* FiveBooks Interviews > Thomas Penn on Henry VII – Another great interview from The Browser (and thankfully I already have three of the books he recommended, so I didn’t have to add too many things to my wishlist)
* Volunteers for the 2012 Season – Sudeley Castle is looking for help with some upcoming projects including the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Katherine Parr’s birth
* Rare tankard finally returns to Glastonbury Abbey – “A rare carved oak tankard, said to have been saved from King Henry VIII
Here’s the round-up of some of the upcoming books and exhibitions for late October through November. Again, there are probably things I’ve missed but the Tudors are just too popular!
Books
* I have conflicting information on a new work on Catherine of Aragon by Patrick Williams… some have it out this past week, but it looks like June 1 of next year is the official release date. If anyone knows more, please let me know.
* A new work by Eric Ives entitled The Reformation Experience is out November 18 in the UK and August 1, 2012 in the US:
* Philip of Spain, King of England: The Forgotten Sovereign by Harry Kelsey will be released November 30 in the UK and January 31, 2012 in the US. I’m looking forward to this one since I don’t know a whole lot about Philip’s time as King consort to Mary I.
Exhibitions
* As I posted about yesterday, the British Library’s Royal Manuscripts exhibition opens November 11 and runs through March 13, 2012. Among the works exhibited will be Henry VIII’s Psalter and the Hours of Elizabeth the Queen (a work owned by, but not created for, Elizabeth of York).
The British Library’s next major exhibition Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination opens November 11, 2011 and runs through March 13, 2012.
I was originally planning to just mention this in my next round-up of upcoming books and exhibitions, but since I had collected several links about it, I thought it deserved a post of its own.
Although the opening is a few weeks away, the British Library has already been posting about the exhibition for a few months on their Digitised Manuscripts blog and have added a bunch of images to their Facebook page. They also have launched an app for tablets and smart phones with some information and zoomable images from the exhibition. I bought the iPad version and it’s lovely! And, if you’re in the area, they will have a two-day conference on December 12 and 13.
If anyone makes it to the exhibition or conference and does a write-up, let me know!
Short round-up this week:
* Inteview with Dr Erin Sadlack, author of The French Queen’s Letters: Mary Tudor Brandon and the Politics of Marriage in 16th Century Europe at the Lady Jane Grey Reference Guide Blog.
* Treasures from the London Library: The Strongest Link – Part of a History Today series of articles on Treasures from the London Library that includes lots of interesting 16th century texts.
* And from the History Today archive: The Sinking of the Mary Rose (originally published in 1982, the year the ship was raised)
* Kenilworth Castle displaying mysterious portrait of Elizabeth I – This is the painting that I posted about last year that was studied by the National Portrait Gallery. Here’s more information from English Heritage.
* British Library’s Treasures in Full: Renaissance Festival Books – I thought I had posted about this collection before, but I couldn’t find it in the archives. This is a collection of over 250 16th and 17th century books from around Europe digitized by the British Library.
* Ancient music books accessible to all – Another great digitization project, this time of early music books. The archive is at Early Music Online.
And finally…
* Wendy Dunn is teaming up with Natalie Grueninger of On the Tudor Trail to bring back the Tudor Ghost Story Contest! I know some of you will be pleased to hear this since I still occasionally get emails asking if the contest would be back – and now it is! There will be a US $5 fee to enter, with all of the money going to the Mary Rose Trust.
Time for another round-up post of upcoming items of interest! This post covers the end of September and all of October. As always, I know I’m missing stuff – there is just too much to keep up with! I might have a follow-up “things I missed” post halfway through October. 🙂 As usual, I’ve added my Amazon affiliate links on the books. As a reminder of my standard disclaimer – purchases made through my affiliate links earn the site a small commission (which pretty much goes right back to Amazon when I buy more Tudor history books!).
Books
* David Loades latest Tudor history book “The Boleyns: The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Family” is out September 28 in the UK (the US info is scant).
* Thomas Penn’s novel book about Henry VII “Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England” is out September 29, 2011 in the UK and March 6, 2012 in the US. It’s nice to see a novel work featuring Henry VII!
[Edit – I goofed, apparently this is a non-fiction book. Thanks for the correction Susan! And my comment about it being nice to see a book featuring Henry VII still stands. :)]
* Alison Weir’s “Mary Boleyn” is out officially (apparently it has been showing up in airport bookstores already!) October 4 in the US and October 6 in the UK
* “Bessie Blount: The Story of Henry VIII’s Longtime Mistress” by Elizabeth Norton is scheduled to be out October 28 in the UK (again, US info is scant, but it may be out the same date?)
Exhibitions
* Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible opened last week at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. and will run through January 15, 2012. (I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m so excited that the exhibit will be coming here to Austin, TX after its run at the Folger!)
* Mary Queen of Scots – a small display at the British Library about Mary’s last years as a prisoner in England. This also runs to January 15, 2012.
Movie
* The film “Anonymous” by director Roland Emmerich will be out in theaters on October 28 in both the US and the UK. I’m not a big fan of the whole “Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare” conspiracy theory – in particular the “Prince Tudor” variation in this film – but the film looks like it will be a visual treat. Vanessa Redgrave (who played Anne Boleyn in the 1966 “A Man for All Seasons”) is an older Elizabeth I and her daughter Joely Richardson (recently seen as Katherine Parr in “The Tudors”) plays the young Elizabeth. You can see trailers at the movie’s official site.
* Nancy Bilyeau’s debut novel “The Crown” will be out early next year, but US readers can enter to win an advanced copy through Goodreads! Find out more about the drawing here. And allow me a small moment of pride in mentioning that Nancy is a submitter and commenter on my Tudor Q&A blog. I’m always amazed by the knowledgeable and talented people who have stumbled across the site!
* A Tudor Herbal c. 1520 – I think How to Be a Retronaut is embarking on a campaign to get on to this round-up every week by continuing to post cool things like this!
* Market news: Elizabethan costume piece tops Cowdray sale – A portrait once thought to have been of Elizabeth I by Marcus Gheeraerdts, sold above the estimate for
A lot shorter than last week…
* Article by John Edwards, author of Mary I: England’s Catholic Queen – The book is the one I mentioned in my late-August round-up of Upcoming lectures, classes, exhibitions and books
* The Tudor Pattern Book – another gem from How to be a Retronaut
* The October issue of BBC History Magazine is out and features an article on Sir Francis Walsingham. Be sure to also check out the podcast interview with the article’s author.
And finally…
* Lady Jane Grey makes an appearance – This was tweeted to me and had a better version of the photo than the one that showed up in my news alerts. I’m still amused at the use of Tudor or Tudor-influenced art in fashion, although having Henry VIII on your knickers still takes the cake.
* Elsyng Palace history unearthed as tile found on site in Forty Hall, Enfield – Archaeologists have unearthed a piece of Enfield history on a dig at the former palace of Henry VIII.
* Helen Castor on Queens and Power – Five Books interview at The Browser
* A Tudor Bestiary – From the great How to be a Retronaut site
* From the Historic Royal Palaces learning blog – Podcast series now available to download!
* And from the HRP’s relaunched gift shop site: Henry USB – in case you’ve always wanted to have Henry VIII sticking out of the site of your computer. They have lots of other Tudor-related stuff, some of it REALLY nice, but this one in particular gave me a chuckle.
* It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these – WANT: Stable Cottage, Old Palace Yard, Richmond, Surrey – It’s a little smaller than some of the previous places that I’ve posted about, but in this case it’s all about location!
I missed at least one (and I’m sure many more) book in the batch I posted about last weekend, but that turned out to be a good thing since The Daily Mail has been publishing articles based on the book this week (compete with sensationalist headlines!). This book is out this week in the UK and in October in the US (I’ve put the ordering links for both below, although the US one may not be useful at the moment).
I’m way overdue for a round-up of upcoming lectures, events, books, etc. I’ll try to do these periodically to catch stuff a few weeks before they come out – so in late September I’ll catch the rest of the October things and maybe stuff coming in early November, and so forth. I have finally put together a spreadsheet where I can keep track of all these things! I know there will be some I miss, but I’ll do my best. 🙂
A couple of upcoming National Portrait Gallery talks of interest: September 1 – Alison Weir “Images of Tudor Queens” and October 6 – John Cooper “The Queen’s Agent” (about Francis Walsingham, Secretary to Elizabeth I)
This fall’s Adult Learning events at Hampton Court Palace from Historic Royal Palaces focuses on Elizabeth I. See the website for full details.
And Thereby Hangs a Tale – A new exhibition exploring the mysteries surrounding Anne and William’s marriage. From September 15, 2011 to January 29, 2012 at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon
Mary I finally joins the Yale English Monarchs Series this month in the UK and next month in the US. More information from Yale University Press and Amazon US and UK affiliate links below:
Yes, the Sunday news round-up is back! Sorry it’s been quiet around here, I’ve been working on a few projects and taking some time off but now I should be back on a regular schedule until I take some more time off in August.
* I’ve mentioned this project many times over the past few years, and now the restored royal apartmetns at Stirling Castle are open! The video in the link to the STV story has some neat views and a snippet of the weavers still working on the reproduction tapestries for the castle. STV – Stirling Castle apartments reopen after makeover (with video) and BBC – Doors open after
LOTS of links this week! And I have two other draft posts on some other topics that I will be posting in the next few days.
* 1536 Act of Union is displayed for the first time ever – From 5 May 2011 to 27 July 2011, the 1536
