Ian Mortimer, best-selling author of the Time Traveller’s series, launches readers into the omnipresent odours and architectural wonders of Elizabethan England in our stunning new Folio Society edition.
If you have an account, log in with your email address.
Ian Mortimer has a gift for fully immersing readers in history: from the outset, you’re invited to explore your surroundings first-hand, walking the streets in the shoes of your historical contemporaries and living history in real time. Following on from our best-selling The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England, we’ve crafted a stunning new Folio edition of Mortimer’s meticulously researched, accessible and witty guide to the Elizabethan era.
production details
Bound in printed and blocked buckram
Set in Caslon with Blackmoor display
488 pages
Frontispiece and 9 colour illustrations
Printed endpapers
9½˝ x 6¼˝
History in the present tense
Aside from Elizabeth I, Shakespeare is the most celebrated figure of the Elizabethan age, so it’s fitting that we begin our tour in Stratford-upon-Avon, taking in the ‘timber-framed, two-storey buildings with unglazed windows, tiled roofs and jetties’. The streets are unpaved and the town is a mix of grand houses and tenements; the adjoining green space piled with ‘animal entrails, faeces, vegetable and old rushes from floors’ – an unofficial amenity tip that spews noxious smells back across the town.
Scholarly research and page-turning narrative
After travelling onwards through rural England and then exploring the bustling capital we learn about religion, professions and everyday essentials: a minefield of unwritten rules closely linked to social class. Woe betide the individual with an income under £100 who steps out in taffeta or a silk jacket, or working folk who fail to wear a wool cap on Sundays. And when it comes to food, ‘heavy fines are levied for eating meat on non-meat days’ unless you can afford the licence for carnivorous dining.
Living in the late 1500s, you’d be thrilled to make it to your 40th birthday and would count your blessings if you avoided the plague. However, Elizabethan England also produced some of the finest writing in the English language – the likes of Christopher Marlowe and John Lyly joining the Bard – as well as incredible architecture such as Audley End, Longleat and Wollaton Hall. And then there was the not insignificant matter of the daily beer allowance; one gallon per person in many large houses, ‘whether he be a servant or a nobleman’.
A unique edition of a best-selling history
Having previously illustrated The Time Traveller’s Guide toMedieval England, talented artist Robert Venables applies his inimitable style to this edition, creating a series of character-led illustrations in the style of Elizabethan woodcuts. The gold-blocked binding design – also by Venables – shows a scene of Elizabethan musicians and dancers, while the cloth-bound cover features gold-foil blockwork, the gold replicated in motifs on the endpapers. Our designers selected Blackmoor for the display typeface; a font based on the style of old English signage.
Contents
1 The Landscape
2 The People
3 Religion
4 Character
5 Basic Essentials
6 What to Wear
7 Travelling
8 Where to Stay
9 What to Eat and Drink
10 Hygiene, Illness and Medicine
11 Law and Disorder
12 Entertainment
About Ian Mortimer
Ian Mortimer is a British historian. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1998, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2015, and was awarded the Alexander Prize (2004) for his work on the social history of medicine. He is the author of four medieval biographies, The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer (2003), The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III (2006), The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England’s Self-Made King (2007) and 1415: Henry V’s Year of Glory (2009), and a book of related scholarly essays, Medieval Intrigue. In 2009 his PhD thesis was published by the Royal Historical Society as The Dying and the Doctors. In 2012, following the success of The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England (published by The Folio Society in 2013), Ian Mortimer published the sequel, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England, which was made into a three-part TV series presented by him. His most recent publications include The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain (2017) and a multi-period historical novel, The Outcasts of Time (2017). Dr Mortimer has also written three novels set in the 1560s, the Clarenceux Trilogy, under his middle names, James Forrester.
About Robert Venables
Robert Venables is a British artist, who studied graphic design at the Central School of Art and Design in London. A master of the pastiche, Robert has created many high-profile advertising campaigns through major international advertising agencies. He is also a prolific editorial illustrator, creating illustrations for many magazines and newspapers. For The Folio Society he has previously illustrated The Persian Expedition and The Violet Fairy Book.
Reviews Powered By
Average Score for 18 Review(s)
As no surprise, this is a beautifully made book.
Review by
Will
on 3rd April 2024
Lovely pictures. Engaging read.
Review by
GAIL GOLAN
on 28th April 2023
Very nice book! I will enjoy it for sure!
Review by
NICOLE GARRETT
on 18th February 2023
Lovely edition with great illustrations
Review by
Simon Todd
on 31st January 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The typeface, the cover, the picture inserts and pages were of high quality, it really is a beautiful book. Reading this Was such a pleasure.
The Six Wives of Henry VIII is Antonia Fraser’s groundbreaking historical biography of England’s most famous royal consorts – a critically acclaimed international bestseller presented in a lavishly illustrated Folio edition.
A new Folio Society edition of eminent linguist David Crystal’s commanding history shows how English turned into a rich, diverse global language, spoken by well over two billion people.
The rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell is brilliantly portrayed in Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall. This Folio Society edition is illustrated by world-renowned fine artists Igor & Marina.
In The Tudor Age, historian Susan Brigden brings to life the world of Henry VIII, Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I in a Folio edition superbly illustrated with colour portraiture.
