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IAN MORTIMER |
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Dr Ian Mortimer was born in Petts Wood (Kent) in 1967. He won a scholarship to Eastbourne College (Sussex) and later read for degrees in history and archive studies at the University of Exeter and University College London. From 1991 to 2003 he worked for a succession of archive and historical research organisations, including Devon Record Office, the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts and the universities of Exeter and Reading. He has BA, MA and PhD degrees in history, and is both a qualified archivist and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was awarded the Alexander Prize by the Royal Historical Society in 2004, and was made an Honorary Research Fellow at Exeter shortly afterwards. Since 2001 he has been a self-employed writer. His main output to date is a sequence of medieval biographies, one per generation, collectively telling the story of political power in England from 1300-1415. Four volumes have been published, namely The Greatest Traitor: the life of Sir Roger Mortimer, The Perfect King: the life of Edward III, The Fears of Henry IV, and 1415: Henry V's Year of Glory. A fifth volume, The Warrior of the Roses: the Life of Richard, duke of York is under contract with The Bodley Head (to be published about 2013). Ian has also pushed forward several groundbreaking ideas about the nature of history. In this respect he is one of the most innovative historical writers working today in the UK. He is the author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England., which is written wholly in the present tense and addressed to the reader as if he or she really could visit fourteenth-century England. His essay about originality in history, 'Beyond the Facts', was published in 2008 by the TLS. Another essay, 'What isn't History?' outlining the social mandate of the historian, appeared in the journal History the same year. His new book, 1415, examines Henry V on a day-by-day basis, juxtaposing simultaneous developments around Europe to create a fully integrated narrative. The conclusion of that book introduces the idea of the 'historical correlative', a new approach to understanding how people appreciate historical facts. His scholarly publications range from an essay in the English Historical Review, demonstrating that Edward II did not die in Berkeley Castle in 1327, to a monograph mapping out the process whereby society became medicalised in the seventeenth century, published by the Royal Historical Society. Other innovative books are in the planning stages - including a second time traveller's guide, to Elizabethan England (under contract with The Bodley Head, to be published in late 2011 or early 2012). Ian lives on the north-eastern edge of Dartmoor (Devon) with his wife Sophie and their three children. His hobbies include visiting historical sites, playing music (guitars and singing), drinking with friends, playing tennis, writing poetry, and walking in and around Dartmoor. Further information is available in an autobiographical note, written in 2008, what's new?' and interviews. |
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Homepage > About Ian |
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