Published By: Watkins
Pages: 224
Released On: 11/02/2025
Breaking away from history as told through the lens of kings, queens and nobles, this book instead lifts the lid on 24 fascinating stories of little-known underdogs, mavericks, trailblazers and oddballs. Through these stories you will meet characters such as:
– The Chevalier d’Eon – a fencing master, spy and diplomat who came out as a woman in 18th-century London
– Ellen and William Croft – a married couple who made a daring escape frrom slavery in the American south
– Peter the Wild Boy – a child found living in the woods in Germany who was taken to the royal court in England
– Caroline Herschel – the first British woman to be paid for scientific work, a discoverer of comets
And many more…
These poignant and often hilarious true stories show us that the world as we know it was built by a wider array of historical figures than we experienced in our schoolbooks.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Watkins for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I love a good non-fiction book, especially about the unsung heroes, those names that get lost amongst history, and so I was really excited about this one. It’s given me some good Google black holes to go down.
A book this length shouldn’t have taken me much time to read at all, but it was so interesting that I had to keep pausing and looking things up and going back and re-reading things.
I won’t go into too much detail about every single person in the book, but here are my quick thoughts:
– Thomas Blood: a wrongun, a thief, but I couldn’t help but be impressed by him
– Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – I absolutely loved her, for her achievements and for her splendid name
– Ellen & William Craft – inspirational! They wrote a book and I have definitely got that on my wishlist now
– Noor Inayat Khan – a WW2 heroine; it’s stories like hers that we should be teaching in schools
– Mary Frith – I feel she has not been written about more. She was a bit of a laugh (although not always law-abiding), and I will try to seek out some more literature about her
– Lady Hestor Stanhope – such an amazing woman, if potentially a little but odd by the end, but I still loved her
– William Buckland – a palaeontologist before the word ‘dinosaur’ even existed. I found him fascinating
– Eleanor Rykener – an individual ahead of their time; someone who would fit in nowadays but would have been somewhat of a novelty in their age
– James Chuma & Abdullah David Susi – part of a historical story that I knew nothing about
– Black Agnes – a woman involved in one of the biggest fights in royal history and yet no-one (or at least I didn’t) knows of her
– Margaret Kempe – I have read about her before (in Victoria MacKenzie’s For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain) and I am endlessly fascinated by her
– The Chevalière d’Éon – she once owned 6,000 books, which puts my 1,400 to shame
– Ira Aldridge – oh I would have loved to have seen him act. He was a unique man to his time, and I think he would have been mesmerising to see
– The Rebecca Rioters – a group of people (not always female) who are part of a rioting time in history that I knew nothing about whatsoever
– Julius Soubise – I didn’t take to Julius or his story at all I’m afraid
– Ethel Macdonald – what a fascinating, brave lady, and more modern than some of the other entries
– The Chartists – these were fascinating and definitely worth future research
– Gerrard Winstanley – another individual and time in history I knew nothing about
– Mary Anning – I have always been in awe of Mary and would have loved to have met her. I will never find her less than an inspiration
– Caroline Herschel – I find astronomy fascinating and I loved learning about Caroline and will definitely be digging a little deeper into her life. I didn’t realise how much her and her brother were integral to the way we see space now
– Peter the Wild Boy – an interesting lad, thrust into the most inhospitable environment of the time: the royal court
– Sabrina Sidney – such a sad story and very bizarre start to life
– Radclyffe “John” Hall – I hadn’t heard of Radclyffe and so this was an interesting read. Radclyffe would have felt right at home had they been around 100 years later or so
– Paul Robeson – someone I feel I should have heard of but hadn’t; simply inspirational
If you’re still reading this then hi! I know that was a lot of information but I wanted to talk about them all. If you’re a history nerd, or if you just like learning about people, then this is a great book to read. There are so many people in it I hadn’t heard of and feel like I should have. You will definitely feel more enriched by reading it.
Books By Your Bedside 