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Philippa Gregory

Goodreads Author

Born

in Kenya

Website

http://www.philippagregory.com

Twitter

PhilippaGbooks

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction, Nonfiction

Member Since

October 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/philippagregory

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DR PHILIPPA GREGORY studied history at the University of Sussex and was awarded a PhD by the University of Edinburgh where she is a Regent and was made Alumna of the Year in 2009. She holds an honorary degree from Teesside University, and is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff. Philippa is a member of the Society of Authors and in 2016, was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction Award by the Historical Writers’ Association. In 2018, she was awarded an Honorary Platinum Award by Neilsen for achieving significant lifetime sales across her entire book output. In 2021, she was awarded a CBE for services to literature and to her charity Gardens for the Gambia. and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal His ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

If you could live in another period of time, when would it be? Why?

Philippa Gregory I have a very strict rule on this! No woman should wish to live before 1960 – life without reliable contraception was always a constant anxiety. No wo…moreI have a very strict rule on this! No woman should wish to live before 1960 – life without reliable contraception was always a constant anxiety. No woman who wants political power could be happy before we got the vote in the 1920s. No woman wanting an education should live in any period before women were admitted to universities and could graduate – so the 1920s for the UK. No married woman could own her own property before 1870 – you fundamentally became part of your husband's estate. In short, despite the dresses and the jewels for the upper classes the best time to be a woman in the western world is probably now. (less)

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For some reason, your books draw more controversy than most other historical fiction books. I have never been sure why, since its clear that you do a tremendous amount of research. Any ideas why this is so?

Philippa Gregory Alas, poor me! I really hate the sort of trolling that occurs from time to time, and I am amazed at the tone that people think appropriate to write ab…moreAlas, poor me! I really hate the sort of trolling that occurs from time to time, and I am amazed at the tone that people think appropriate to write about someone, or even to write to them. A lot of the most spiteful people are not trained historians – so they haven't learned the habit of detachment from the subject – they write as if they are defending an unjustly accused personal friend, whereas the reputation of these characters is something which can be rightly and carefully considered, and the people lived 500 years ago! At all the universities where I have taught or studied there is an absolute commitment to scholarly discussion which should never be personal or rude, and is supposed to get you – by the exchange of views and information – to a greater truth. So it is surprising and even shocking when people just rant. But often they forget that the books are novels, they are fiction and though based on fact they are supposed to be works of literature with their own narrative arc and language. I am not obliged to record everything that happened or even the whole of the life. The other thing that people seem to forget is that the books are almost all written from a point of view – often it's not what I think of a character, but what the narrator thinks of a character. You can see this really well in the contrast between The White Queen which was written from the point of view of Elizabeth Woodville, and The Red Queen which was written from the point of view of Margaret Beaufort. Their opinions of each other are those of rivals and sometimes friends and ultimately enemies – but I don't think of Elizabeth Woodville as a conniving sexually manipulative witch – that's Margaret Beaufort's opinion. My job is to get into her head, so as to invite the reader into her head and let the reader see the world through Margaret Beaufort's eyes with her prejudices and her mistakes. AND (as if this weren't complicated enough) Margaret Beaufort does not know all the history that I know, she does not know what happens after her death, so her account of the times is not what I would write if I were writing history. She's a fictional character in my novel and her view is a fictional account from a very limited idiosyncratic point of view. And finally – sorry for such a long answer – I think the controversy is the downside of success. More than 9 million people read my books – naturally a proportion of them won't enjoy them, or prefer one to another, or prefer the tv or the films. But on the other hand I enjoy a lot of praise and I get great reviews and I number some of the great historians of the period among my personal friends. The best response is from the readers who have been inspired to study history and read the records that I use for research so that they can find out for themselves what they think a character was like. That's so much more interesting than trying to shout other people down.(less)

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Philippa Gregory’s books

Average rating: 3.94 · 1,809,491 ratings · 93,840 reviews · 132 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Other Boleyn Girl (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #9) 4.09 avg rating — 512,099 ratings — published 2001 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The White Queen (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #2) 3.96 avg rating — 182,175 ratings — published 2009 — 142 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Constant Princess (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #6) 3.93 avg rating — 166,849 ratings — published 2005 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Queen's Fool (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #13) 3.89 avg rating — 100,491 ratings — published 2003 — 105 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Lady of the Rivers (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #1) 4.05 avg rating — 92,645 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Boleyn Inheritance (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #10) 3.91 avg rating — 95,103 ratings — published 2006 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Red Queen (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #3) 3.83 avg rating — 77,823 ratings — published 2010 — 141 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Virgin's Lover (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #14) 3.74 avg rating — 57,328 ratings — published 2004 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Kingmaker's Daughter (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #4) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 50,209 ratings — published 2012 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The White Princess (The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, #5) 3.94 avg rating — 48,682 ratings — published 2013 — 88 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Philippa Gregory…

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Philippa Gregory's Blog: Philippa Gregory's News

Dawnlands pre-order bonus

I know some of you can’t wait to read the next instalment so my publishers are offering a sneak peek of my new novel Dawnlands to everyone that has pre-ordered it. Submit your receipt for either a hardback, ebook, or audiobook purchase and you’ll receive an exclusive excerpt emailed directly to you.

Head to the links below to find out more - you have until 7 November at 11.59PM GMT to submit.
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Published on October 07, 2022 05:57 • Tags: dawnlands

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Series by Philippa Gregory

The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels (16 books)
by

Philippa Gregory (Goodreads Author)

3.97 avg rating — 1,562,430 ratings

The Tudor Court (8 books)
by

Philippa Gregory (Goodreads Author)

3.98 avg rating — 1,048,261 ratings

The Cousins' War (6 books)
by

Philippa Gregory (Goodreads Author)

3.97 avg rating — 484,195 ratings

The Fairmile (3 books)
by

Philippa Gregory (Goodreads Author)

3.87 avg rating — 58,146 ratings

Wideacre (3 books)
by

Philippa Gregory (Goodreads Author)

3.55 avg rating — 54,427 ratings

More series by Philippa Gregory…

At the beginning of each calendar month, Goodreads’ crack editorial squad assembles a list of the hottest and most popular new books...

Polls

Vote For 1 Book For September 2016- Top 2 Win

11/22/63

by Stephen King
Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine. By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke... Finding himself in warmhearted Jodie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten...and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.

5 votes 31.3%

Hello From the Gillespies

by Monica McInerney
For the past thirty-three years, Angela Gillespie has sent to friends and family around the world an end-of-the-year letter titled “Hello from the Gillespies.” It’s always been cheery and full of good news. This year, Angela surprises herself—she tells the truth....

5 votes 31.3%

Pinkertons Sister

by Peter Rushforth
Trapped in a suffocating life of convention and party chatter, Alice Pinkerton has turned to the liberating worlds she finds in literature. Pinkerton's Sister is a novel for readers, who will thrill to recognize a kindred in Alice's references to our most beloved literary characters: Jo March, Jane Eyre, Leo Bloom, and Hester Prynne, among many others, grace these pages.

2 votes 12.5%

The Mirror Thief

by Martin Seay
The core story is set in Venice in the sixteenth century, when the famed makers of Venetian glass were perfecting one of the old world's most wondrous inventions: the mirror. An object of glittering yet fearful fascination—was it reflecting simple reality, or something more spiritually revealing?—the Venetian mirrors were state of the art technology, and subject to industrial espionage by desirous sultans and royals world-wide. But for any of the development team to leave the island was a crime punishable by death.

2 votes 12.5%

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, two very different magicians emerge to change England's history. In the year 1806, with the Napoleonic Wars raging on land and sea, most people believe magic to be long dead in England--until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers, and becomes a celebrity overnight.

1 vote 6.3%

Titans

by Leila Meacham
Texas in the early 1900s, its inhabitants still traveling by horseback and barely familiar with the telephone, was on the cusp of an oil boom that, unbeknownst to its residents, would spark a period of dramatic changes and economic growth. In the midst of this transformative time in Southern history, two unforgettable characters emerge and find their fates irrevocably intertwined: Samantha Gordon, the privileged heiress to the sprawling Las Tres Lomas cattle ranch near Fort Worth, and Nathan Holloway, a sweet-natured and charming farm boy from far north Texas.

1 vote 6.3%

America's First Daughter

by Stephanie Dray
In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, bestselling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph—a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.

0 votes 0.0%

The Big Green Tent

by Lyudmila Ulitskaya
The Big Green Tent is the kind of book the term “Russian novel” was invented for. A sweeping saga, it tells the story of three school friends who meet in Moscow in the 1950s and go on to embody the heroism, folly, compromise, and hope of the Soviet dissident experience. These three boys—an orphaned poet; a gifted, fragile pianist; and a budding photographer with a talent for collecting secrets—struggle to reach adulthood in a society where their heroes have been censored and exiled.

0 votes 0.0%

The Other Boleyn Girl

by Philippa Gregory
A rich and compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamourous court in Europe and survived by following her heart.

0 votes 0.0%

16 total votes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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75 Books...More o...: Authors you love	17	2302	Jan 27, 2009 04:14AM
The Rory Gilmore ...: Any good books?	38	589	Jun 13, 2009 05:55PM
Mystery/Thriller ...: Philippa Gregory - The White Queen	2	55	Jul 11, 2009 08:28PM
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Philippa’s Friend Comments

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message 3: by Elizabeth(The Book Whisperer)

Feb 12, 2013 02:44AM

I am such a huge fan! I love historical fiction so much, and your books are just perfect!

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message 2: by Kellee (last edited Jan 28, 2013 08:57PM)

Jan 28, 2013 08:55PM

I can never express the influence your work has had in my life. I struggled with reading anything above a young adult level (even into my late twenties)until I was given The Other Boleyn Girl. Thank you! I am dyslexic and the effort was never worth the story, until I found your work. I have never been drawn into a story as I was with that novel. You are a master at your craft, thank you for the influence you have had in my life!

What a great surprise to find out I have not purchased everything you have written. I can't wait to finish my collection and get lost in your world.

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message 1: by Beth

Jan 28, 2013 04:01PM