Apology

Owing to a misunderstanding, there is no History Girls post today.

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

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Did Fanny Vote? by Sheena Wilkinson

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In just over a week, on 14th December 2018 it will be the centenary of the election where some women in Britain and Ireland had the right to vote for the first time in a parliamentary election. Last week in Dublin I saw commemorative posters of Constance Markievicz on almost every lamp-post. Markievicz was of course the first woman elected to Westminter, though as an Irish Republican she never took up that seat, recognising Dáil Eireann instead. I knew then that I’d have to find something fresh to say about the 1918 election for my upcoming History Girls post. commemorative posters in Dublin  Fresh? How? I’ve been living with this date for over two years, since I started writing my 2017 novel   Star By Star  which focuses on that election. I’ve done suffragist-themed events from Aberdeeen down to London, and from Derry to Kerry. I've written lots of relevant articles and blogs. I’m pretty much electioned-out, especially as during that time I also found myself campaigning ...
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(I have adapted the Guardian's weekly Review section template for this short post,* making it refer just to History books and historical fiction.) T he history book I am currently reading This is a bit of a cheat, as I've just finished it! It is odd for me to consider it as history, since I remember the scandal and the trial very well. But, like the rest of the country, I was gripped this summer by the TV series based on the book, with stellar acting by Hugh Grant, Ben Wishaw, Alex Jennings, Adrian Scarborough and the whole ensemble. And of course the cation takes place in the '60s and '70s. So, taking the 25-30 years or one generation back, as a criterion for what makes history or historical fiction, this fits. It was like reading a thriller. The closest parallel I can think of it All the President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein or, further back, An Officer and a Gentleman by Robert Harris. It has the same forensic level of detail, without losing a bit of the te...
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Photographs and film footage from the past are always evocative, now matter how shaky or blurred.  Recently, advances in technology are being applied to them, partly in the name of preservation and partly as a way of bringing them even more vividly to modern audiences.*   Have a look at A Trip Through Paris , France below -  Instead of the jerky movements we're used to seeing in early film, the footage has been slowed down to a more natural pace.  Instead of adding a (sometimes really dire) music sound track, there are the noises of horse traffic, bicycle bells and people talking.  Watching this, I had  a real sense of people wearing clothes, not people in costume.  I l oved the kid who stood right in front of the camera until poked out of the way with an umbrella.   And those moving walkways in the snow - if I had seen this before writing  Slightly Jones and the Case of the Hidden City , set in 1890s Paris, I would definitely have...
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