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In Behind the Throne, historian Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the reality of five centuries of life at the English court, taking the listener on a remarkable journey from one Queen Elizabeth to another and exploring life as it was lived by clerks and courtiers and clowns and crowned heads: the power struggles and petty rivalries, the tension between duty and desire, the practicalities of cooking dinner for thousands and of ensuring the king always won when he played a game of tennis.

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The Tudor period conjures up images of queens and noblewomen in elaborate court dress, of palace intrigue and dramatic politics. But if you were a woman, it was also a time when death during childbirth was rife, when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, and the education you could hope to receive was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful and dynamic women in a way that no era had been before.

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  • The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England

  • A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
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  • Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets

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The Royal Art of Poison audiobook cover art

  • The Royal Art of Poison

  • Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul
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The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants, and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions.

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Publisher's Summary

The 19th century was a time of unprecedented change, and nowhere was this more apparent than London. In only a few decades, the capital grew from a compact Regency town into a sprawling metropolis of six-and-a-half million inhabitants, the largest city the world had ever seen. Technology - railways, street-lighting, and sewers - transformed both the city and the experience of city living, as London expanded in every direction.

Now, Judith Flanders, one of Britain's foremost social historians, explores the world portrayed so vividly in Dickens' novels, showing life on the streets of London in colorful, fascinating detail. From the moment Charles Dickens, the century's best-loved English novelist and London's greatest observer, arrived in the city in 1822, he obsessively walked its streets, recording its pleasures, curiosities, and cruelties.

Now, with him, Flanders leads us through the markets, transport systems, sewers, rivers, slums, alleys, cemeteries, gin palaces, chop-houses, and entertainment emporia of Dickens' London, to reveal the Victorian capital in all its variety, vibrancy, and squalor.

©2012 Judith Flanders (P)2017 Tantor

Critic Reviews

"A superb portrait of an exciting, thriving, and dangerous city." ( Booklist)

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

UNFORTUNATLY DISAPPOINTED, IS NOT INTERESTING

I love the Victorian Era, I collect Strand Magazines from that era, and hence was straining at the leash to get started on this book, but soon I was let down. It is list upon list.

For instance, the railway stations that were built at the time. One gets list of railway stations, how big they were, how long they took to build, problems encountered with building them, the financial costs etc, and so it goes on. Then we have list of roads, list of the most common crimes, each chapter sprinkled with text from a Charles Dickens novel. What is missing is the people. It really was so disappointing that the author had not populated the book with Victorians and their lives, more just what was Victorian London. It makes the book very sterile.

Like that teacher at school who takes a great subject and just makes it weary to listen to. Every chapter is loaded with rather uninteresting data, each finds one not being emotional attached or feeling as though one is there. Such a shame.

12 of 16 people found this review helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful!

An excellent account of life in Dickens' 19th century London. A must have for writers.

3 of 9 people found this review helpful