Historical research makes use of venerable sources and texts held in reputable libraries and unimpeachable online sites, methodically uncovered and assessed - essential ingredients for writing historical fiction and non-fiction alike. But sometimes, we stumble across books that might not even have anything to do with the work in hand but which, months or years later, become our go-to place of inspiration and those precious tiny telling details that give our writing savour and life.
Today I'm celebrating a miscellany of books like that - just a few - there are many more! - acquired from charity shops, unexpectedly come upon in second- and first-hand bookshops, or at the bottom of boxes inherited from the clear-outs of family homes.
For example, during a visit to the Natural History Museum in London donkeys years ago, I bought Alfred Waterhouse and the Natural History Museum by Mark Girouard - the visit and the book planted the seeds of four Victorian mystery novels about Slightly Jones. Afterlives by Ruth Johnston gave me more wonderfully ghoulish material than I was able to use (but then, you shouldn't force everything you know into a book anyway!). Manners for Women and Manners for Men by Mrs Humphry (which I blogged about on History Girls many years ago here and here) were separate charity shop finds, and helped me enormously with the Slightly Jones series. Linda Cracknell's The Beat of the Heart Stones fed into the historical narrative poems of Never Still Nivver Still. Culpepper's English Physician and Complete Herbal came into my hands from my mother-in-law's bookshelves and provided depth and texture to the medieval series The Wickit Chronicles. Mary Kingsley's Travels in West Africa and Albert Robida's The Twentieth Century contributed to the non-fiction books Talking History and Great Minds, and also Revolution! (due out in 2026 from Templar Press).
If you come across any of these sometime, somewhere, make sure you give them a second glance - you are in for a treat! What books have you stumbled upon in unexpected places, maybe at times when you were thinking about something else entirely, that have helped bring your historical research to life? Serendipity is the writer's friend...
Joan Lennon website.
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2 comments:
Love this. The joy of the unexpected book!
Ah, wonderful. A Treasure Chest List! A long time ago after I had published The Olive Farm and its two sequels, when I was embarking on my travels round the Mediterranean in search of the secrets and historical jewels - mythologies, agricultural facts etc - of the cultivation of the olive tree, a friend gave me a copy of Fernand Braudel's 'The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World ..'. It was a game-changer for me. His perspectives on history and his ability to range back and forth across millennia.
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