On the heels of her triumphant How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman travels even further back in English history to the era closest to her heart, the dramatic period from the crowning of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I. Drawing on her own adventures living in re-created Tudor conditions, Goodman serves as our intrepid guide to sixteenth-century living. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work celebrates the ordinary lives of those who labored through the era. From sounding the "hue and cry" to alert a village to danger to malting grain for homemade ale, from the gruesome sport of bear-baiting to cuckolding and cross-dressing--the madcap habits and revealing intimacies of life in the time of Shakespeare are vividly rendered for the insatiably curious.
Ruth is the queen of living history, long may she reign!--Lucy Worsley, author of The Art of the English Murder
Immersive, engrossing...a reminder that while we believe we see the past from a detached, enlightened perspective, our view is often blinkered, and so is our notion of what constitutes human needs and nature. It's one thing to pay lip service to how much the Western family has changed over the past several centuries and another to witness someone recreating the way it once worked...The revelatory truth behind the sumptuous gowns and palaces of Wolf Hall isn't how badly those kings and princesses smelled but just how hard everyone else was working in the rest of their world.--Laura Miller
[Goodman's] enthusiasm is exhilarating and contagious; her writing is clear and clean, sharply observant of tactile details and what they reveal about 16th-century life...Goodman approaches a plainspoken lyricism, a prosaic celebration of her ancestors and the world they made.--Kate Tuttle
Goodman's latest foray into immersive history is a revelation...This fascinating book shows us commoners at their patriotic Sunday afternoon archery practice and Henry VIII playing tennis in a crimson satin doublet, with evening prayers for all. It's the next best thing to being there.--Sarah Ferguson