Friday, September 21, 2012

1st Anniversary of English Historical Fiction Authors

by Debra Brown

A year ago, September 23rd of 2011, a group of authors lost in yesteryear Britain launched this blog. The goals were to take you back in time with a daily historical post and a weekly historical fiction giveaway. Readers would be introduced to the authors and their work.

We feel that we have had great success. We have had nearly eighty thousand of you wonderful folks come to visit us here--for the exact number, scroll down to our little knights at the bottom of this page. We have Nearly four hundred blog followers and have had over five hundred and fifty of you join us to chat in our Facebook group. Many have joined in the fun by leaving comments on our posts, and at least one of you per week has won a book in our giveaways.

This weekend we are celebrating. We have a giveaway planned with twenty books being given away. See the separate Giveaway Post and enter the drawing by midnight Pacific Standard Time on September 23rd. Please also check the weekly giveaway for The Gilded Lily by Deborah Swift. 

I am going to mention some of the highlights of our year's posts here and categorize more of them just in case you missed one. :) And tomorrow we will have a post of interesting historical anecdotes.

And now....

The post receiving the most views for the year is... (don't ask me how, really, we suspect he paid people to visit the post. Honestly, are toll roads the most interesting topic in England?) But yes, the top post of the year is by J.A. Beard, Stand and Deliver ... Your Tolls? The Rise and Fall of the Turnpikes. Maybe it was all those Olympic attenders worried about getting around the country. Congrats J.A.!

#2) Little Ease: Torture and the Tudors by Nancy Bilyeau

#3) A Glimpse of York During the Regency by Lauren Gilbert

#4) The Poor Always Amongst Us by Phillip Brown

#5) Child Labour and Pick-pockets by Marie Higgins

#6) In the Wake of James Cook by Linda Collison

#7) An Inconvenient Princess by Nancy Bilyeau

#8) A Regency-era Lady's Prodigious Layers of Clothing by Wanda Luce

#9) Top Ten tourist attractions in London, 1780 By Mike Rendell

#10) The Birth of "Bloody Mary" By Nancy Bilyeau

A special mention, too, to Gorgeous Georgian Metrosexuals — or How to strut your Metrosexual Stuff in Georgian England by Lucinda Brant, which was a ragingly popular post until it disappeared into thin air. We could not find it on the blog. For months we thought it gone forever, but Lucinda discovered that she could get to it by Google search. Huh? Well, we did some tinkering around and discovered that it had been unpublished. So we published it again, and it is back. Who knows what happened. Someone worried about that Number One spot, probably. ;)

Congrats to these authors. It seems Nancy Bilyeau ran off with the cake.


POST CATEGORIES

For reading ideas, I am categorizing some of the posts. I wish I could add all 365 of them, but time and space don't allow. And you'd get sick of it.

PLACES

A Journey to the Brontë family at Haworth
by Stephanie Cowell


Boundaries: Medieval Women in Medieval Gardens by Judith Arnopp

The Tower of London by Debra Brown

The Lost Houses of England by Maggi Andersen

London in the early 19th century by M.M. Bennetts

Marshalsea Debtor's Prison by Wanda Luce

The Lost Palace of Richmond by Anita Davison

Lloyds-- Lifeblood of British Commerce and Starbucks of its Day by Linda Collison

Welsh Idylls with Judith Arnopp Part One: St Gwenog's Church


CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Smuggling in Devon by Jenna Dawlish

Old English Crime and Punishment: Death By Pyre...A More seemly Death For Women? by Teresa Thomas Bohannon

Fourteen Years Hard Labour by Prue Batten

Steal a book, seven-years' hard labor overseas: Transportation as punishment in the 17th-19th centuries by J.A. Beard


WAR AND BATTLES

Bloody Deeds at Tewkesbury by Anne O'Brien

Degsastan - a lost battlefield by Richard Denning

The West Africa Squadron by Tess St. John

'Carrying Away the Booty' - Drake's attack on the Spanish 'Silver Train' by Jenny Barden


PEOPLE

William Before He Was the Conqueror By Rosanne E. Lortz

Eleanor of Aquitaine: Mother of Kings by Christy English

Richard II and His Double by Brian Wainwright

Lady Jane Grey: Royal Tragedy - Royal Pawn by Teresa Bohannon

The Mysterious Death of King William the Second by Judith Arnopp

Alice the Bad or Alice the Good - or Alice the Quintessential Business Woman? by Anne O'Brien

Charles Brandon ~ Loyaulte me Oblige by Katherine Marcella

Adeliza of Louvain, Lady of the English: A Forgotten Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick

The Harlot Who Was Dickens’ Muse, or, Even Greater Expectations by Katherine Ashe

Two Men, One Crown by Paula Lofting


ART

Holy Grails, Bejeweled Crosses, and Beastly Aquamanilia: European Art in the 13th Century by Sherry Jones

The Royal Coat of Arms by Debra Brown



WEAPONS

The English Longbow – Available in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Video by Scott Higginbotham


LIFE

The Victorian Wedding versus My Own Wedding by Karen V. Wasylowski

Regency Era Classified Ads by Debra Brown

Mother Mourning: Childbed Fever in Tudor Times by Sandra Byrd

Celebrating Childhood Picture Books and the stories that shape us by Deborah Swift

The must-have garden accessories for the rich and richer? A glasshouse and pineapples! by M.M. Bennetts

Eloping to Scotland and the Marriage Act of 1753 by Regina Jeffers

Culpeper's Complete Herbal by Farida Mestek

History-Within-History by Grace Elliot

Downton Abbey and the Fight for Irish Freedom by Tim Vicary

The Great ‘What If’. What if Edward Bruce had succeeded in Ireland? by Arthur Russell

The Sheltons, A Typcial Knight's Family by Anne Clinard Barnhill

By Permission of Heaven - The Great Fire of London by Richard Denning


FASHION

Undergarments Revealed by Diane Scott Lewis

The Changes in Ladies' Fashion from 1780s to 1814 - Too Much or Too Little by Maggi Andersen

The Wig Business was Big Business in 18th Century France by Lucinda Brant


FOOD

Nom nom nom ~ Regency style by M.M. Bennetts

17th Century Recipes by Katherine Pym

Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon England by Richard Denning


TRANSPORTATION

The days the world’s most powerful man, the richest man and smartest man came together by David William Wilkin

Sir Goldsworthy Gurney and His Steam Carriage by Gary Inbinder

Mrs. Benz's Wild Ride by V.R. Christensen


REGENCY TIMES

Waltzing during the English Regency? Preposterous! by David W. Wilkin

Almack's - it's not quite what you think... by M.M. Bennetts

‘Privy & Privation: A Handsome History of Health & Hygiene in Regaustenian* Times’ by Lady A~, Authoress of ‘The Bath Novels of Lady A~’ Collection.

The Regency Review, by Lady A~, Authoress of 'The Bath Novels of Lady A~' Collection


TUDOR TIMES

The Reformation and the English People by Sam Thomas

Elizabeth & Mary, Rival Queens: A Study of Leadership by Barbara Kyle

Our Tudor Sisters by Sandra Byrd

The Lady Elizabeth, Prisoner at Woodstock by Victoria Lamb


There is soooo much more. Please look around. Don't forget to check our weekly giveaways. And do come back for another year! 


17 comments:

  1. Well, congratulations to you all. I can't tell you how good it is to have something daily to read connected to my favourite subject - history - that is intelligent and entertaining - and sometimes quite surprising. Please keep it up!

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  2. EHFA is a splendid source of information, entertainment, introduction to the works of authors, and to corners of England's history and the people who inhabited those corners. It's been a great privilege to be included among EHFA's contributors.

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  3. Happy anniversary!

    Gayle Mills

    scmema at yahoo dot com

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  4. Happy Anniversary! What a wonderful compilation of fascinating posts! A great source of information. Here's to many more anniversaries!

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    1. Oh, I didn't know this site, I'll have a lot to catch up with - I've always been fond of history but English history is my weakness :) thanks Cathie and Happy Anniversary !!!

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  5. Congrats EHFA!

    This is a wonderful site and I've really enjoyed the posts. Best wishes for another successful and splendid year!

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  6. Loving the list of posts - I am going to settle down, as if to a good meal, and work my way through them.
    Grace x

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  7. Elizabeth Gayle FellowsSeptember 22, 2012 at 2:32 PM

    Congratulations to a wonderful creative group...Such a year, so many marvellous posts, and such fantastic information. I really appreciate this site, it is so informative, and necessary. Again, thank you to all who have contributed, designed, written and devoted time to it. It is also my hubbies and my 41st Wedding Anniversary!!! Would adore winning a book.... Books are definitely part of my life... when I was 5 years old in Montreal, I was taken by ambulance to the hospital for Whooping Cough... Why I remember it so vividly is that I was fortunate that I already loved books and could read at 4... The horrendous thing was .. I had to leave my books at the hospital when I returned home... I cried for weeks....

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  8. Remember when I made the joke about I should write a book about a toll keeper? It turns out that Georgette Heyer wrote a toll-gate-centered book. :0

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  9. Really a year already? Well there have been a lot of interesting posts here. Well done one and all and esp Debbie for getting us organised.

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  10. Have just discovered this site and got so excited I posted to a thread that is a year old!

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  11. Congratulations everyone! You do an amazing job. Keep it up!

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  12. As an occasional contributor can I echo the thanks to Debra for getting EHFA off the ground. If she has to put up with as much I.T. incompetence from the other authors as she does from me, she deserves a medal!
    Mike

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  13. John Campbell referred me here! CONGRATULATIONS on your FIRST blogoversary!!! NOTHING feels any better than the first! Congratulations!
    Laurie

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  14. Forgot to mention:
    This one: Boundaries: Medieval Women in Medieval Gardens by Judith Arnopp
    Sounds the most interesting to me!
    I LOVE British authors!
    KEEP writing!
    Laurie

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  15. Congratulations and thank you for sharing all your hard work! Best wishes for continued success!

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