Author: Margaret Willes

The people and publications at the root of a national obsession In the century between the accession of Elizabeth I and the restoration of Charles ...

The extraordinary story of St. Pauls Churchyardthe area of London that was a center of social and intellectual life for more than a millennium   St...

In the seventeenth century, even the most elaborate and fashionable gardens had areas set aside for growing herbs, fruit, vegetables and flowers fo...

An intimate portrait of two pivotal Restoration figures during one of the most dramatic periods of English history Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn are...

This magnificently illustrated peoples history celebrates the extraordinary feats of cultivation by the working class in Britain, even if the land ...

An entertaining journey through five centuries of acquiring, reading, and enjoying books in Britain and America It is easy to forget in our own day...

When Falstaff calls upon the sky to rain potatoes in The Merry Wives of Windsor, he is highlighting the late sixteenth-century belief that the exot...