Quest for a queen

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

The Last Days of Pompeii The immersive exhibition Immerse LDN, Excel, London, until March 15 Vesuvius was always erupting in nineteenth-century London, to the delight of hundreds of thousands of eager

Beckie Burr has taken the internet by storm with her atmospheric images of ancient sites. The photographer tells Gemma Padley what drives her to make such dramatic images and why she doesn’t plan to stop any time soon

Alice Loxton EleanorA 200-mile walk in search of England’slost queen352pp. Pan Macmillan. £22. Many are commemorated in stone, but few so grandly as Eleanor of Castile (d. 1290). Following her unexpec

Daniel Anlezark Constructing the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles 310pp. D. S. Brewer. £95. Janet Bately, Joseph C. Harris and Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, with Susan Irvine, editors and translators The Old Engl

Catherine Clarke A History of England in 25 Poems400pp. Allen Lane. £25. Mark Forsyth Rhyme and ReasonA short history of poetry and people (forpeople who don’t usually read poetry)368pp. Allen & Unwin