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Paul Edmund Norman's Monthly Online Literary Magazine ~ July 2005 Issue No. 81
THE BEST WEBSITES
1: PHLIPPA GREGORY www.philippagregory.com
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Philippa Gregory has long been one of my favourite historical novelists. When I was a young boy, our nearest library consisted of a few bookshelves erected in my primary school on a Tuesday evening for a couple of hours. It was there that I spent all of my time selecting books quite randomly at first, but then settling on titles by people like Jean Plaidy and Mary Campbell Barnes. I was hungry for history, and discovered quite early on that the best way to learn it was not from text books but from well-written novels. During my teens I gained extra marks by using what I'd learned about WWII and early twentieth-century history from Dennis Wheatley's books. But I didn't discover Philippa Gregory until I saw THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL lying on the shelf in my local supermarket. I had to have it, and after reading it I knew that Philippa Gregory was probably the best historical novelist I was ever likely to read. Last month (June 2005) I reviewed THE VIRGIN'S LOVER, Philippa's latest novel, and this month, to kick off this new "special website" feature, I've chosen to look at her website. www.philippagregory.com has everything; extracts from her books, a well-written and insightful biography, and most importantly, for me, extensive notes on her research. I am, by trade, a collector of information, something I try to get across in the pages of Gateway Monthly, and historical backgrounds to novels are all too often neglected or taken for granted. Conn Iggulden and Bernard Cornwell usually provide some indication of the accuracy of their history in a given novel, but Philippa goes one further, and this website is a joy to visit, there is so much to see and learn. There's even a short story you can download and read at your leisure, which I believe changes from time to time. If you like history and want to get at the real truth, the truth as researched painstakingly and with care by a master (or mistress) craftsman (or craftswoman), then look no further than Philippa Gregory. This is a website par excellence and one that will leave you wanting to rush out and by the books. The design is deceptively simple, but enormously effective and quick to load. I cannot recommend this site highly enough.
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