Weekend Break Packages: Take a step back in time with our Festival Weekend Break Packages Treat yourself to two nights at the Harrogate History Festival by booking a combined ticket and accommodation package at the Old Swan Hotel. Weekend Break Packages including 2 nights’ accommodation and tickets for all events over the weekend are only £215 per person for two people sharing a double/twin room, or £265 per person for singles. For details visit: www.harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/history To book, call: 01423 562 303 Weekend Rover Ticket £89 for access to all events throughout the weekend Saturday Rover Ticket £55 for access to all events on Saturday 26 October 2013 The Old Swan Hotel
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25 – 27 October 2013 The Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate
with M C Scott
Regular Funders
Cultural Partners
If travelling by train, the Old Swan Hotel is located a five minute walk or a short taxi drive from the railway station. @Harrogatefest #historyfest Harrogate International Festivals
Celebrating Historical Writing
Fay Weldon Rose Tremain Kate Mosse Lindsey Davis
Dating back to the 1840s, the Old Swan Hotel is one of Harrogate’s oldest and most cherished hotels. The hotel’s Victorian splendor and traditional elegance is complemented by a modern and contemporary environment.
HISTORY FESTIVAL
Featuring
Festival Sponsors
Premier Partners
The hotel has 175 free car parking spaces and full disabled access.
HARROGATE
Harrogate International Festivals is a registered charity, no. 244861. All information correct at time of going to print. Harrogate International Festivals reserves the right to make such alterations as may become necessary.
The Search for Richard 111 Box Office: 01423 562 303
Welcome from the Harrogate International Festivals We’re delighted to welcome you to our exciting new Festival: the first Harrogate History Festival which takes place this autumn from 25-27 October 2013, at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate. Award-winning novelists Fay Weldon CBE, Rose Tremain CBE and Kate Mosse OBE will be the Guest Stars of the Festival. Writing for 50 years, Weldon has written more than 30 novels and a number of plays for TV, radio and the stage. Tremain’s bestselling novels have won the Orange Prize and Whitbread Novel of the Year Award, amongst others, and Kate Mosse is a best-selling author and Co-Founder & Honorary Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Panels include the inside story behind the search for Richard III’s remains, exploring battlefields of past glories and gore, and giants of the genre dissecting Ancient Rome. Off the battleground, we have a panel celebrating history’s most powerful women as well as the wives and girlfriends behind the most powerful men in history. Harrogate is a beautiful location and steeped in its own history, so join us for this fantastic opportunity to explore and grapple with leading literary minds on some of the most gripping conflicts, personalities and epic tales in human history. “Following in the footsteps of the outstandingly successful Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, the first ever Harrogate History Festival promises to bring together a spectacular combination of the very best historical writing today: from the Roman Empire to the twentieth century; fiction and nonfiction; thrillers, romances, literary works and television, we’ll bring together writers and readers, researchers and fans in an atmosphere of shared passion and fascination. Come along and taste the history!” Manda (M C) Scott, Chair of the Historical Writer’s Association
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HISTORY FESTIVAL
Programme 2013 Special Guest: Rose Tremain Friday 25th October | 7pm |Tickets: £10 Award-winning author Rose Tremain opens the first Harrogate History Festival to discuss her new book, Merivel: A Man of His Time; a novel The Independent has deemed ‘an unadulterated delight’ and its hero, Robert Merivel, described as ‘one of the great imaginative creations in English literature of the past 50 years’ by the Telegraph. Rose Tremain’s best-selling novels have been published in 27 countries and have won prizes including the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Novel of the Year. Rose will be interviewed by Emeritus Professor Jon Cook.
The Search for Richard III with Philippa Langley and Michael Jones Friday 25th October | 8:30pm | Tickets: £10 On 22nd August 1485, Richard III was killed at Bosworth Field, the last king of England to die in battle. For ten years screenwriter Philippa Langley and historian Michael Jones have shared a vision to find the real Richard – the lost king buried underneath all the hostile propaganda. Now, in an incredible find, Richard III’s remains have been uncovered beneath a car park in Leicester. The King’s Grave traces this remarkable journey and is a unique collaboration between two of the people who made it happen. Join us to hear more about one of our greatest archaeological discoveries, and a complete re-evaluation of our most controversial monarch.
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Wives of Tyrants: Tudors to Nazis Saturday 26th October | 10am | Tickets: £7 Sleeping with the enemy: authors Jane Thynne and Elizabeth Fremantle take us on an exploration of women who sleep with tyrants, focusing on the six consorts of Henry VIII and the Nazis’ wives and mistresses. Jane and Elizabeth will discuss to what extent such women had political influence, albeit mediated through their male bedfellows, and explore why some individuals have been more vilified than others. Jane Thynne’s latest novel, Black Roses, is a thriller set in Germany, whilst Elizabeth Fremantle’s subject in the Queen’s Gambit is Queen Katherine Parr.
Special Guest: Fay Weldon Saturday 26th October | 11:30am | Tickets: £10 We welcome Fay Weldon, CBE, in a rare festival appearance to discuss the sharp and witty historical novels in her Love and Inheritance trilogy. Including joyous tales of manners and morals, commoners and countesses, Love and Inheritance has been depicted as ‘Weldon at her most spellbinding’ by the Spectator. Author of classic novels like The Life and Loves of a She Devil and Puffball, and the pilot episode of the original TV Series, Upstairs Downstairs, don’t miss this rare opportunity to listen to one of Britain’s best loved authors, interviewed by Daphne Wright.
Women, Sex and Power Saturday 26th October | 1:30pm | Tickets: £7 From Eleanor of Aquitaine toYolanda of Aragon, from the Empress Theodora to both Queens Elizabeth, women throughout history have ever held the reins of power. By strategy, intelligence and strength of character as much as by sexual allure, women have moulded their present to leave their marks on our past. Hear from four of the best in the business about the ways in which women have found power in the worlds of men, with Kate Worsley, Imogen Robertson, Stella Duffy and Lisa Hilton.
so much of our past has been shaped by who won or lost the war. From Robyn Young’s Crusades trilogy, to A. L. Berridge’s depiction of the Crimean War, via Robert Low’s Vikings and the 1572 Parisian Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre as portrayed by Tim Willocks, delve into the whys and hows of writing outstanding battle scenes with these masters of the art. Sponsored by Special Guest: Lindsey Davis with M C Scott Saturday 26th October | 4:30pm | Tickets: £10
Lindsey Davis is the high priestess - some might say the goddess - of classical historical fiction. The twenty best-selling books of her Falco series, plus her stand-alone novels of Domitian and the Civil War have sold around the world, inspiring generations of readers and would-be authors Lindsey will be in conversation with M C Scott, author of the international best-selling Boudica series and the Rome series of classical spy thrillers Sponsored by
Marching with the Legions Saturday 26th October | 7pm | Tickets: £7 Ancient Rome: the glories of empire, brought about by the might and discipline of the legions. But what was it really like? Robert Low brings together three of the giants of the genre, Simon Scarrow, Ben Kane and Anthony Riches to discuss the eternal attraction of the legions and the men who fought in them from Republic to Empire and beyond. Gladiators, Spartacus, Hannibal and Hadrian’s Wall; join us for an evening celebrating all things militarily Roman – and possibly some authentic kit!
Salon North Saturday 26th October
8.30pm | Tickets: £12
The ring of swords, the thunder of cavalry and cannon, the clash of armies; the small moments on a battlefield that turn the battle and so turn the war. Fighting is the meat and bones of history,
Join us for a special History Festival edition of SALON NORTH, with the opportunity to hear three speakers on art, science or psychology. The early 20th Century is a curious time in history for women, sex and power. Queen Victoria’s reign only just made it in to the century, and the Great War was about to change everything forever. So just what was Edwardian Britain really like? Author of the Sunday Times bestsellers The World of Downton Abbey and The Chronicles of Downton Abbey – nobody knows the arena of the hit TV show more than Jessica
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Sponsored by
To Battle! – Conflict in Fiction Saturday 26th October | 3pm | Tickets: £7
Fellowes. For Salon North she will be looking at Great Britain through the prism of the series, how the characters and storylines explore and explain the social history, and even the psychology of the early 20th Century. Joining Jessica is music specialist Ellen Loudon who will provide a historical audio and visual tour of the music of the period – whether upstairs, downstairs or in trade. We are also very pleased to have Lucinda Hawksley, author, biographer and great-great-great grand-daughter of Charles Dickens, who has made an almost scientific study of the actions of women in this period to secure the right to vote. This event will last two hours. Sponsored by Before Sherlock: The Novel Art of Detection Sunday 27th October | 10am | Tickets: £7
Detective fiction is a staple of our books, television and literary festival circuit, but there was a time when crime was solved by guesswork, prejudice and the offices of the local priest. Lloyd Shepherd’s new novel centres on mystery in the reign of mad George III, whilst Joan Lock looks at Britain’s worst civilian tragedy of the 1878 sinking of the Princess Alice. Explore the origins of the detective, and how the world’s most famous literary detective helped shape the future with Arthur Conan Doyle experts Nick Rennison, who has written a ‘biography’ of Sherlock Holmes and is an expert on historical mysteries, and Robert Ryan, who has reinvented Sherlock’s sidekick, Dr John Watson, as the star of his book. Sponsored by
Special Guest: Kate Mosse Sunday 27th October | 11.30am | Tickets: £10 Kate Mosse OBE, author of multimillion selling international No 1 bestselling Languedoc Trilogy and Co-Founder & Honorary Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction – previously the Orange Prize for Fiction – is welcomed to Harrogate as her first ever collection of stories The Mistletoe Bride & Other Winter Tales is published. Named by the Bookseller as one of the fifty most influential people in British publishing, Kate’s novel Labyrinth, first in the Languedoc Trilogy, was named as one of Waterstone’s best novels of the past twenty five years and was made into a feature film for Channel 4 television by Ridley Scott staring John Hurt, Jessica Brown-Findlay and Tom Felton.
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