Event overview
Celebrate the publication of House of Fiction and The King's Assassin with authors Phyllis Richardson and Benjamin Woolley, lecturers in English Literature at Goldsmiths.
House of Fiction, by Phyllis Richardson: Why do we like reading novels about houses? Is it voyeurism, curiosity about how other people live? Or is it to learn about the past, to get inside not just the rooms but other people’s lives? What prompted writers like Austen, Scott, Dickens, Waugh, Du Maurier to build the fictional Pemberley, Satis House, Brideshead and Manderley? House of Fiction explores the most celebrated houses in English fiction and the real-life cottages, castles, suburban settlements and country piles that inspired them.
The King’s Assassin, by Benjamin Woolley: George Villiers a young Englishman with ‘a face to paint an angel by’, first caught the eye of James I of England and VI of Scotland over the rim of a goblet in 1614. It marked the beginning of a royal love affair that would lead to Villiers dominating Jacobean politics and culminate with James wanting the favourite to become his ‘wife’. Then in the spring of 1625, with George at his bedside, James fell ill and died. A secret parliamentary investigation followed which discovered that Villiers had given James a mysterious ‘potion and plaster’ just before his death. Accusations of poison were soon to follow. Drawing on historical research and modern forensics, The King’s Assassin explores the truth behind the rumours, and the way they poisoned relations between monarchy and parliament.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 20 Mar 2019 | 7:15pm - 9:15pm |
Accessibility
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