Antonia Hodgson

Antonia Hodgson is a British novelist and editor best known for atmospheric historical crime fiction. Born and raised in Derby, she developed an interest in the early Georgian period through its literature, art and popular culture, particularly the work of William Hogarth, The Beggar’s Opera and Moll Flanders. Before becoming a full-time author, Hodgson had a long career in publishing and now works as a freelance editor. Her debut novel, The Devil in the Marshalsea, won the CWA Historical Dagger and was shortlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year. She has since expanded into epic fantasy with The Raven Scholar, the opening volume of the Eternal Path trilogy.

Hodgson’s historical fiction comprises four Thomas Hawkins mysteries set in Georgian England during the late 1720s. The Devil in the Marshalsea places the reckless former clergyman Thomas Hawkins inside London’s notorious debtors’ prison, where he must investigate a murder to secure his freedom. The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins involves a neighbour’s murder, the London underworld and intrigue surrounding the royal court, while A Death at Fountains Abbey sends Hawkins to Yorkshire to protect the disgraced politician John Aislabie from an elaborate campaign of threats and revenge. The Silver Collar returns to London and explores kidnapping, enslavement and the connections between Georgian wealth and the colonial slave trade. Across the series, Hodgson combines murder mysteries with carefully researched depictions of prisons, coffee houses, criminal networks, royal politics and the darker underside of eighteenth-century society.