You wouldn’t guess from the cover design—three songbirds silhouetted over swatches of picturesque Englishness—but Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems hits one of its sweet spots with a

JOHN DOWLAND IS MY NAME: musician, composer, greatest lute player of my age in Europe, some say, when in England Elizabeth and James were on the throne. I died in 1626 when I was 63 and was buried on

Best books… Roy Foster The emeritus professor of ...

This moment is surely imbued with the most global symbolism. It was when, according to the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, adventurers sailed across the north Atlantic from settlements on the west coast of

Collecting fields often have holy grails, and in medieval illuminated manuscripts one is the Roman d’Alexandre or Romance of Alexander. The 20cm-tall book, written in Old French and illustrated with 1

The historian, author and former director of planning and development at English Heritage tells Anne Cuthbertson about his life and work in the capital