Books by Sarah Gristwood

The bestselling historian finds a new way to look at the most famous English royal dynasty

To this day, Beatrix Potter's tales delight children and grown-ups around the world. But few people realise how extraordinary her own story is. Respected biographer Sarah Gristwood discovers a life crisscrossed with contradictions and marked by tragedy, yet one that left a remarkable literary - and environmental - legacy.

Few relationships fire our imagination like that of Elizabeth I and her 'bonnie sweet Robin' - the Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley. And when Dudley's wife, Amy, died a mere two years later under suspicious circumstances many speculated that Elizabeth and Robert would marry.

A BBC History Magazine Book of the Year - the rise and fall of the women who ruled sixteenth-century Europe

The true story of the White Queen and more, this is a thrilling history of the extraordinary noblewomen who lived through the Wars of the Roses.The events of the Wars of the Roses are usually described in terms of the men involved: Richard Duke of York, Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII. But these years were also packed with women's drama and - in the tales of conflicted maternity and monstrous births - alive with female energy.In this completely original book, Sarah Gristwood sheds light on a neglected dimension of English history: the impact of Tudor women on the Wars of the Roses. She examines, among others, Cecily Neville, who was deprived of being queen when her husband died at the Battle of Wakefield; Elizabeth Woodville, the commoner who married Edward IV in secret; Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, whose love and ambition for her son knew no bounds.Until now, the lives of these women have remained little known to the general public. Sarah Gristwood tells their stories in detail for the first time. Captivating and original, this is historical writing of the most important kind.

Mary had made her mark in fashionable Georgian society and this, over the next two momentous decades, was where she contrived to stay. This vivid and accessible biography explores Georgian England during a period of extreme political, social and cultural upheaval through the life of this remarkable woman.