The Lady Who Might Have Been Queen of England
The failed campaign to put Lady Arbella Stuart in the line of succession began with a matchmaking scheme between her two grandmothers.
That Time Jean-Paul Sartre Got High on Mescaline
The French existentialist got more than he bargained for when he went in search of drug-induced inspiration for his philosophical writings.
Jane Austen’s Mock History Book
Working with her sister, Cassandra, the teenaged Austen composed a satirical send-up of England's monarchs.
The Reading Abbey Girls’ School
This all-girls boarding school in England produced a generation of accomplished female writers in the eighteenth century.
Who Was the Little Girl in Las Meninas?
A Spanish princess who became a German queen, Margarita Teresa lived a life structured by Catholicism and cut short by consanguinity.
The Marriage Myths of Jadwiga of Poland
Crowned rex Poloniae, King of Poland, as a ten-year-old, Jadwiga soon had a decision to make: should she marry for love, or should she marry for politics?
The Hoax That Inspired Mary Shelley
In the hot summer of 1826, the British people—including science fiction author, Mary Shelley—embraced a fake and frozen Roger Dodsworth.
Beatrice Hastings: The Forgotten Modernist
Marginalized in early histories of Modernist literature, Hastings left a mark on one of the most influential literary magazines of the early twentieth century.