Imagine you could see the smiles of the people mentioned in Samuel Pepys’s diary, hear the shouts of market traders, and touch their wares. How would you find your way around? Where would you stay? What would you wear? Where might you be suspected of witchcraft? Where would you be welcome? This is an up-close-and-personal look at Britain between the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 and the end of the century. The last witch is sentenced to death just two years before Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, the bedrock of modern science, is published. Religion still has a severe grip on society and yet some—including the king—flout every moral convention they can find. There are great fires in London and Edinburgh; the plague disappears; a global trading empire develops.Over these four dynamic decades, the last vestiges of medievalism are swept away and replaced by a tremendous cultural flowering. Why are half the people you meet under the age of twenty-one? What is considered rude? And why is dueling so popular? Mortimer delves into the nuances of daily life to paint a vibrant and detailed picture of society at the dawn of the modern world as only he can.

'A fresh and funny book that wears its learning lightly' Independent Discover the era of William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I through the sharp, informative and hilarious eyes of Ian Mortimer. We think of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603) as a golden age. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? In this book Ian Mortimer reveals a country in which life expectancy is in the early thirties, people still starve to death and Catholics are persecuted for their faith. Yet it produces some of the finest writing in the English language, some of the most magnificent architecture, and sees Elizabeth's subjects settle in America and circumnavigate the globe. Welcome to a country that is, in all its contradictions, the very crucible of the modern world. 'Vivid trip back to the 16th century...highly entertaining book' Guardian

'Ian Mortimer's Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain tells you all you need to know about criminals, disease, beggars and other late Georgian delights' Daily Telegraph, History Books of the Year This is the age of Jane Austen and the Romantic poets; the paintings of John Constable and the gardens of Humphry Repton; the sartorial elegance of Beau Brummell and the poetic licence of Lord Byron; Britain's military triumphs at Trafalgar and Waterloo; the threat of revolution and the Peterloo massacre. In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveller's Guides, Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history - the Regency, or Georgian England. Ian Mortimer takes us on a thrilling journey to the past, revealing what people ate, drank, and wore; where they shopped and how they amused themselves; what they believed in and what they were afraid of. Conveying the sights, sounds and smells of the Regency period, this is history at its most exciting, physical, visceral - the past not as something to be studied but as lived experience.

A vivid and immersive history of Georgian England that gives its reader a firsthand experience of life as it was truly lived during the era of Jane Austen, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the Duke of Wellington. This is the age of Jane Austen and the Romantic poets; the paintings of John Constable and the gardens of Humphry Repton; the sartorial elegance of Beau Brummell and the poetic licence of Lord Byron; Britain's military triumphs at Trafalgar and Waterloo; the threat of revolution and the Peterloo massacre. In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveler's Guides, Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history: the Regency, or Georgian England. A time of exuberance, thrills, frills and unchecked bad behavior, it was perhaps the last age of true freedom before the arrival of the stifling world of Victorian morality. At the same time, it was a period of transition that reflected unprecedented social, economic, and political change. And like all periods in history, it was an age of many contradictions—where Beethoven's thundering Fifth Symphony could premier in the same year that saw Jane Austen craft the delicate sensitivities of Persuasion. Once more, Ian Mortimer takes us on a thrilling journey to the past, revealing what people ate, drank, and wore; where they shopped and how they amused themselves; what they believed in, and what they were afraid of. Conveying the sights, sound,s and smells of the Regency period, this is history at its most exciting, physical, visceral—the past not as something to be studied but as lived experience.

December 1348. What if you had just six days to save your soul? With the country in the grip of the Black Death, brothers John and William fear that they will shortly die and suffer in the afterlife. But as the end draws near, they are given an unexpected choice: either to go home and spend their last six days in their familiar world, or to search for salvation across the forthcoming centuries, living each one of their remaining days ninety-nine years after the last. John and William choose the future and find themselves in 1447, ignorant of almost everything going on around them. The year 1546 brings no more comfort, and 1645 challenges them in further unexpected ways. It is not just that technology is changing; things they have taken for granted all their lives prove to be short-lived. As they find themselves in stranger and stranger times, the reader travels with them, seeing the world through their eyes as it shifts through disease, progress, enlightenment, and war. But their time is running out—can they do something to redeem themselves before the six days are up?

Discover an original, entertaining and illuminating guide to a completely different world: England in the Middle Ages. Imagine you could travel back to the fourteenth century. What would you see, and hear, and smell? Where would you stay? What are you going to eat? And how are you going to test to see if you are going down with the plague? In The Time Traveller's Guide Ian Mortimer's radical new approach turns our entire understanding of history upside down. History is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived, whether that's the life of a peasant or a lord. The result is perhaps the most astonishing history book you are ever likely to read; as revolutionary as it is informative, as entertaining as it is startling. 'Ian Mortimer is the most remarkable medieval historian of our time' The Times 'After The Canterbury Tales this has to be the most entertaining book ever written about the middle ages' Guardian

The “superb” time travel adventure of one lonely young girl, a remarkable family, and an impossible task, set between modern and Elizabethan England (The Washington Post) "A beautiful book . . . a form of enchanting ghost story, with the ghosts drawn in with the grace of a painter on a fan." —The Observer Penelope Taberner Cameron is a solitary and a sickly child, a reader and a dreamer. Her mother, indeed, is of the opinion that the girl has grown all too attached to the products of her imagination and decides to send her away from London for a restorative dose of fresh country air. But staying at Thackers, in remote Derbyshire, Penelope is soon caught up in a new mystery, as she finds herself transported at unforeseeable intervals back and forth from modern to Elizabethan times. There she becomes part of a remarkable family that is, Penelope realizes, in terrible danger as they plot to free Mary, Queen of Scots, from the prison in which Queen Elizabeth has confined her. Penelope knows the tragic end that awaits the Scottish queen, but she can neither change the course of events nor persuade her new family of the hopelessness of their cause, which love, loyalty, and justice all compel them to embrace. Caught between present and past, Penelope is ever more torn by questions of freedom and fate. To travel in time, she discovers, is to be very much alone. And yet the slow recurrent rhythms of the natural world, beautifully captured by Alison Uttley, also speak of a greater ongoing life that transcends the passage of the years.

“The author has done an outstanding job of making the colorful Georgian world come alive in all its contradictory, bawdy, and utterly fascinating glory.” —Britain Express Could you successfully be a Georgian? Find yourself immersed in the pivotal world of Georgian England, exciting times to live in. Everything was booming—the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the nascent Empire—in an era inhabited by Mary Shelley, the Romantic poets, and their contemporaries. Find everything you need to know in order to survive as a time traveler from today, undetected among the ordinary people: how to dress, behave yourself in public, earn a living, and find somewhere to live. Just as importantly, you will be given advice on how to stay on the right side of the law, and how to avoid getting seriously ill. Monica Hall creatively evokes this bygone era, filling the pages of this book with all aspects of daily life within the period, calling upon diaries, illustrations, letters, poetry, prose, eighteenth century laws, and archives. This detailed account intimately explores the ever-changing lives of those who lived through Britain’s imperial prowess, the birth of modern capitalism, and the upheaval of the industrial revolution, major political reform, and class division. “A fantastic piece of social history that fills in a huge number of gaps in our knowledge. First class entertainment and educational at the same time!” —Books Monthly

A breathtaking celebration of Instagram's premier solo female travel community, featuring 200 striking photographs—most of them all-new—plus empowering messages and practical tips for solo travelers. “For those with passports full of stories, this book carries you away to every dreamy corner of the earth. I can’t stop flipping through these visually incandescent pages to see where I’m capable of traveling to next!”—Caila Quinn, The Bachelor contestant and lifestyle and travel influencer From backpackers in Peru to artists in Berlin to storytellers in Morocco, Dame Traveler celebrates the diversity and bravery of women from around the world who are not afraid to think (and live) outside the box. The revolutionary Dame Traveler Instagram account was founded by Nastasia Yakoub, who was born into a strict Chaldean-Middle Eastern community where women are expected to marry young and put aside other personal ambitions. But at the age of twenty, Nastasia embarked on a solo trip to South Africa to volunteer at an orphanage in Cape Town, which sparked a love of world travel. Recognizing a void in the travel industry, she founded Dame Traveler, the first female travel community on Instagram, now more than half a million strong. Nastasia herself has traveled to sixty-three countries on solo adventures, sharing colorful photos of her tantalizing travels along the way. Dame Traveler celebrates these women with a photographic collection of 200 stunning images paired with inspiring captions, 80% of which have never been seen on the Instagram account. Organized into sections on architecture, culture, nature, and water, each entry features travel information, plus tips, advice, unique solo-travel experiences, and wisdom from contributing globe-trotters to embolden the next generation of Dame Travelers.

Leaving behind a sparkling social life and a successful journalism career, Eleni Gage moved from New York City to the remote Greek village of Lia. Lia is the same village where her father was born and her grandmother murdered, and which her father, Nicholas Gage, made famous twenty years ago with his international bestseller Eleni. Her four aunts (the diminutive but formidable thitsas) warned Eleni that she'd get killed by Albanians and eaten by wolves if she moved to Lia, invoking the curse her grandmother placed on any of her descendants who returned to Greece. But Eleni was determined to rebuild the ruins of her grandparents' house and to come to terms with her family's tragic history. Along the way, she learned to dodge bad omens and to battle the scorpions on her pillow and the shadows in her heart. She also came to understand that Greece and its memories were not only dark and death-filled, and that memories of the dead can bring new life to the present. Part travel memoir and part family saga, North of Ithaka is, above all, a journey home.