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IAN MORTIMER |
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What's New? |
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Forthcoming |
Forthcoming AppearancesClick on the link above for events at which I am booked to speak. |
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26 August 2010 |
Holiday in ItalyThe 'what's new' section has been a bit quiet of late - I've been away in Italy with the family. What a contrast to Devon! A friend of mine told me yesterday that he's given up using a calendar to measure summer here on Dartmoor; in future he's going to use a stopwatch. Apart from a storm in Venice - which my sons rated one of the highlights of the holiday, as we were on the open section at the back of a vaporetto at the time and had the Grand Canal to ourselves - we saw no rain at all. Instead we saw sun and sights. From Venice to Vesuvius, Naples to Assisi, Rome, Milan and Perugia. Highlights for me include: just being in Venice; that storm; seeing Torcello; the golden rooms, prison cells and Bosch paintings in the doge's palace; taking the children on a gondola (after a week of telling them it was too expensive); waiting until everyone had left the |
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19 July 2010 |
Historical performances, music and fictionLast week I spent four days at Ways with Words at Dartington - my local and favourite literary festival. I ended up doing two talks, one on 'Rewriting History' in the fourteenth-century Great Hall and the other on 'Medieval Political Murder' (taking the place of the author of a book on assassination, who unfortunately fell ill - we suspect poison). I very much enjoyed the three sessions I chaired too - Nigel Warburton, Ben Gummer and Juliet Barker - as well as the others I merely attended. My head is still reeling from Prof Robin Dunbar telling me that some women might see in four or even five primary colours. After dinner on the last day I raced back to play a gig in my local pub - life doesn't get much better than talking about medieval history in a medieval hall and playing my songs in a favourite pub on the same day. Today's news is neither about history nor music, however. Today I launched the website for my first novel, which will be published by Headline Review next month. Sacred Treason will appear under my middle names, James Forrester, to make a clear distinction between fact and fiction in my writing. Details can be found at the new website - http://www.jamesforrester.co.uk. |
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4 July 2010 |
The Early Music ShowA recent edition of the Early Music Show on Radio Three was devoted to Edward III. I was interviewed about the king and his reign by the presenter, Lucy Skeaping. For a few days you can listen again. The Independent commented on it. |
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1 July 2010 |
The Art of HistoryThis essay appeared in the June ed. of the American journal Historically Speaking. It was accompanied by an interview with the editor, Donald A. Yerxa. Both are made available here with permission from the John Hopkins University Press. |
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15 June 2010 |
Biographical article in a local paperThere are a few errors in it (e.g.'Richard II's death in 1327') but an article on me, based on a telephone interview, appeared recently in the Herald Express newspaper, which covers the area from Torquay up to Moretonhampstead. I might add I don't sit here with a bottle of whisky open all the time - but it helps when trying to imagine the horror and courage of a battle scene. |
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5 June 2010 |
Book review in the Daily TelegraphBook review of Allan Massie's Royal Stuarts in today's paper. |
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29 May 2010 |
MusicSeveral people have asked me recently what my songs sound like. When I say 'they're dificult to categorise', the question inevitably comes back: 'are they folk?' One day I hope I'll have an album of them properly recorded; but if you want an idea of the sort of noise I make when not working, I have put three on a Myspace page. They were recorded on the laptop on which I wrote Fears of Henry IV and The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, and on which I store all the images of medieval manuscripts I filmed for those two books and The Perfect King. Wonderful thing, technology. |
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25 May 2010 |
Medieval IntrigueThe subtitle of this book has changed. Originally it was 'Royal Murder and Regnal Legitimacy' but that word 'regnal' seems to sound a little too removed from common speech. Besdies theer was nothing in that title to suggest an important methodological element to the book. So I've suggested 'Decoding Royal Conspiracies' instead. That is perhaps a more descriptive subtitle, as the book is about the 'decoding' (how we can and cannot prove what happened in the distant past) as much as it is about the intrigues themselves. The contents have not changed: I'm checking the proofs right now. |
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23 May 2010 |
Friar Tuck in SussexSitting down at my desk this morning, I shuffled a few papers about and noticed a print-out from an edition of the calendar of Patent Rolls. I’d printed it out because the entry at the top of the page was a commission dated 4 April 1417 to Sir John Mortimer to go to France on the King’s service with Sir Thomas Carew, taking with them 150 men-at-arms and 300 archers. This Sir John later rebelled against the king and claimed that he was next in line to the throne after the earl of March in 1424, and was executed after escaping from the Tower of London. But what caught my eye this morning was the entry for 22 May: ‘Commission to William Lasyngby and Robert Hull to enquire into the report that a certain person assuming the unusual name of Frere Tuk and other evildoers have entered parks, warrens and chaces of divers lieges of the king in the counties of Surrey and Sussex at divers times, hunted therein and carried off deer, hares, rabbits, pheasants and partridges, burned the houses and lodges for the keeping of the parks, warrens and chaces, and threatened the keepers.’ Click here for the published calendar. Stories of Robin Hood were being circulated in the fourteenth century, as William Langland’s Piers Plowman shows. (In that work Piers declares that he knows the gests of Robin Hood.) But I was amused to note this location of a real Friar Tuck to the south-east, just as Yorkshire and Nottingham are in the news for arguing about the origins of the real Robin Hood. I have come across a reference to a real ‘Robin Hood’ in the manor of Wakefield (Yorkshire) in the second decade of the fourteenth century, and another to an outlaw called John Little in Yorkshire in 1318 (Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England, pp. 273-4). This southern Friar Tuck probably took his name from the tales, which presumably emanated from the north. Even so, it’s a nice reminder that such legends quickly spread far beyond their original locations. |
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14 May 2010 |
The Bodley Head's 'Brain Shots'The first six of the Bodley Head's 'Brain Shots' are about to be launched. This is a new ideas-based series of ebooks and audiobooks. One of the six is a shortened version of my Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England. Unlike some of the others, my text is not a revised version but the best bits of the original - as selected by me in conjunction with my excellent editor, Jorg Hensgen. |
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12 May 2010 |
Should we get rid of political parties?On the day that Gordon Brown became prime minister, I wrote a note on the challenges facing him (see: 'After the Rivalry'). It turned out not to be too far from the mark. In the run-up to this year's election I wrote a piece on banning political parties. Unfortunately for me, more politically charged, less-idealistic pieces shunted it from the comments pages of the broadsheets. But, given the hung parliament and the talk of electoral reform of both Lords and Commons, I decided to rewrite it yesterday evening and place it here. I wonder what I'll think about it on 7 May 2015 (the date of the 'next' election, optimistically set yesterday). |
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27 April 2010 |
'What isn't History? The Nature and Enjoyment of History in the Twenty-First CenturyI have added a pre-publication draft of this article, which was published in the journal History in 2008, to the Notes and Essays section of my website. Its relevance for alternative views of the past, such as those put forward in my Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England and my 1415, require it to be more accessible. |
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4 April 2010 |
Sunday Times positionMy Time Traveller's Guide is number six this week in the Sunday Times non-fiction paperback top ten. Its highest place yet. |
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30 March 2010 |
Two essaysI have added two essays to the website: one arising from queries about the meaning of 'hanged, drawn and quartered' and the other arising from my thoughts about Wikipedia as a ship of fools. |
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29 March 2010 |
Cover and contents for Medieval IntrigueThe cover has been designed for Medieval Intrigue, so it is time I started to add some details. I added the contents page as a first step. I'll add more information in due course. Time Traveller's Guide is number seven this week in the Sunday Times non-fiction paperback top ten. Its highest position yet. |
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14 March 2010 |
Sunday Times top ten.Number eight this week in the Sunday Times. |
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7 March 2010 |
Sunday Times top ten.Fantastic time in Keswick, courtesy of Words by the Water, where I talked about 'Rewriting History' on Friday 5th. Saw snow-capped mountains from the hotel room, and then watched them turn pink in the sunset. Returned home to see that my Time Traveller's Guide is back in the Sunday Times top ten non-fiction paperbacks, at no. 9, after a two-month absence. Many thanks to all of you who have supported it. |
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24 February 2010 |
Bridget Barker (1959-2010)Bridget - a great friend, a wonderful individual and an enormously talented artist - died on 14 February. Her funeral took place today. I read Ogden Nash's The Tale of Custard the Dragon, just as she had requested on her last (50th) birthday. I also read a poem of my own, written for her over the last few days. Those who were at the funeral who would like a copy can find it here. |
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14 February 2010 |
Washington Post ReviewThe US edition of The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England looks as though it may attract a few American 'visitors' to medieval England. 'The pleasure of reading Mortimer's "The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England" is its Fodor's-style framework,' writes Aaron Leitko in today's edition of The Washington Post. |
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10 January 2010 |
Sunday Times bestsellers listTime Traveller's Guide to Medieval England has made the Sunday Times top ten for paperback non-fiction - at no. 9 for the week before and the week after Christmas combined. No. 1 this week in the Daily Telegraph (which uses just data from the Waterstones chain, not the total consumer market). |
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1 January 2010 |
THES review of The Dying and the DoctorsGood review today in the THES. A positive start to the New Year! |
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