Literature

Mills & Boon’s medical romances helped make the NHS more appealing to an ambivalent public. 

Throughout the centuries countless libraries and carefully curated book collections have been dispersed, destroyed or lost. 

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, was obsessed with falconry. This led him to write a truly revolutionary book on the subject.

Britain’s obscenity trials and censorship laws.

Female explorers of the 19th century demolished Victorian notions of stay-at-home women. But why were they so vehemently anti-feminist? The case of Mary Wollstonecraft may hold the answer. 

The industry of fake charters, from the tenth century, to its zenith two centuries later.

What sort of society produced Shakespeare?

How has The Beano’s Dennis the Menace survived the rise of television, increased cultural consumption and the digital age? 

It is often claimed that press censorship came to an end in England at the close of the 17th century. But it persisted, thanks to an unsavoury network of government spies.