About
4My Biography
I was born in Edinburgh. From the age of six I was brought up and educated on the edge of the North Yorkshire moors. On leaving my local comprehensive school in Easingwold I read English Language and Literature at Somerville College, Oxford.
Ten years in the antiquarian book trade in London followed, before my first book (Wayward Women) was commissioned. For a while I juggled book dealing, freelance archive work, writing, having our children and research; now I work as a full-time writer and lecturer, specialising in social history through women’s eyes. I have two sons and live near Oxford with my husband and two feline amanuenses, Emmy and Mrs Chippy.
I’ve been an avid book collector since the age of seven, when banned from the local library for using a jam-tart bookmark in their copy of Squirrel Nutkin. I’m an amateur musician, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a member of the Society of Authors and founder-member of Writers in Oxford. I'm also a writing mentor. (My family and I design and make pop-up Escape Rooms for charity... but that's another story.) In December 2015 I was appointed Senior Associate of Somerville College, Oxford; in September 2020 enjoyed a Hawthornden Fellowship in Italy (an honour for which I was re-elected in 2022), and in May 2021 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
I’m currently working on my 14th book: Lunatic Women, due for publication in 2026.
I was born in Edinburgh. From the age of six I was brought up and educated on the edge of the North Yorkshire moors. On leaving my local comprehensive school in Easingwold I read English Language and Literature at Somerville College, Oxford.
Ten years in the antiquarian book trade in London followed, before my first book (Wayward Women) was commissioned. For a while I juggled book dealing, freelance archive work, writing, having our children and research; now I work as a full-time writer and lecturer, specialising in social history through women’s eyes. I have two sons and live near Oxford with my husband and two feline amanuenses, Emmy and Mrs Chippy.
I’ve been an avid book collector since the age of seven, when banned from the local library for using a jam-tart bookmark in their copy of Squirrel Nutkin. I’m an amateur musician, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a member of the Society of Authors and founder-member of Writers in Oxford. I'm also a writing mentor. (My family and I design and make pop-up Escape Rooms for charity... but that's another story.) In December 2015 I was appointed Senior Associate of Somerville College, Oxford; in September 2020 enjoyed a Hawthornden Fellowship in Italy (an honour for which I was re-elected in 2022), and in May 2021 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
I’m currently working on my 14th book: Lunatic Women, due for publication in 2026.
"A gem of a book. Social history of the best kind"
Sunday Times
