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Author

Philippa Gregory

1954

32 fiction · 1 non-fiction

Philippa Gregory writes popular historical fiction with a strong focus on royal women, dynastic politics, inheritance and court survival.

Philippa Gregory was born in Nairobi in 1954 and moved to Britain as a child. She worked in journalism and broadcasting before pursuing postgraduate study, completing a doctorate in eighteenth-century literature. Her first novel, Wideacre, was published in 1987 and began a career that has ranged across several centuries of British and European history.

Gregory is most closely associated with novels about royal and noble women during the Wars of the Roses and the Tudor period. The Other Boleyn Girl brought her a large international readership, and later series followed figures including Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort, Catherine of Aragon and Elizabeth I. Her books often shift familiar dynastic events toward women whose influence operated through marriage, motherhood, patronage and household alliances. Gregory also writes about ordinary families, religious change and Atlantic expansion. Her fiction is interpretive rather than a substitute for academic biography, but its strong viewpoints encourage readers to reconsider who is treated as politically important. She is especially relevant to readers seeking accessible court drama and female-centred narratives of Plantagenet and Tudor England.

Periods and events

Armistice and Aftermath of World War I1918–1923 CE Battle of Bosworth Field1485 CE Battle of Flodden1513 CE Battle of Tewkesbury1471 CE Battle of Towton1461 CE Captivity of Mary, Queen of Scots in England1568–1587 CE Commonwealth and Protectorate1649–1660 CE Country House Society1714–1837 CE Dissolution of the Monasteries1536–1541 CE Early Tudor Consolidation1485–1509 CE Edwardian Reformation1547–1553 CE Elizabethan Age1558–1603 CE Elizabethan Religious Settlement1559–1563 CE Fall of Constantinople1453 CE First English Civil War1642–1646 CE Georgian Empire and Atlantic World1714–1837 CE Georgian Era1714–1830 CE Henrician Reformation1530–1547 CE Hundred Years’ War1337–1453 CE Industrial Revolution in Britain1760–1830 CE Jacobean Era1603–1625 CE Lady Jane Grey Succession Crisis1553-07-06–1554-02-12 Lancastrian England1399–1461 CE Late Medievalc. 1300–1500 CE Mary I and the Counter-Reformation1553–1558 CE Medieval Italy476–1494 CE Medieval Venicec. 697–1500 CE Princes in the Tower1483 CE Puritan New England1620–1692 CE Reign of Henry VII1485–1509 CE Reign of Henry VIII1509–1547 CE Restoration1660–1685 CE Restoration London1660–1685 CE Rise of the Ottoman Empire1299–1453 CE Roaring Twenties1920–1929 CE Second English Civil War1648–1649 CE World War I1914–1918 CE Yorkist England1461–1485 CE

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by Philippa Gregory (5 series)

The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels in Order

by Philippa Gregory 16 books 4.4(140,052)

The Plantagenet and Tudor novels form a chronological sequence of connected but independently readable stories about women near the English throne. They move from the Lancastrian court and the Wars of the Roses through the rise of the Tudors, Henry VIII’s marriages, the mid-Tudor religious crisis and the…

Fairmile in Order

by Philippa Gregory 3 books 4.4(31,818)

The Fairmile series follows Alinor and the generations descended from her through the English Civil War, the Restoration and the Monmouth Rebellion. Beginning in a poor Sussex marshland community, the story expands to London, Venice, New England and Barbados as the family moves through trade, migration, marriage and…

Tradescant Novels in Order

by Philippa Gregory 2 books 4.4(6,328)

The Tradescant novels are a two-generation biographical family saga inspired by the gardeners and collectors John Tradescant the Elder and John Tradescant the Younger. Their work for royal and aristocratic patrons connects the development of English gardens and collections to travel, scientific curiosity, patronage and the growth of…

Wideacre in Order

by Philippa Gregory 3 books 4.1(9,756)

The Wideacre trilogy is a Georgian Gothic family saga centred on a fictional Sussex estate and the Lacey family’s struggle to possess it. Beginning with Beatrice Lacey’s determination to overcome male-only inheritance, the novels follow the consequences of her choices through the next generation and eventually to an…

Order of Darkness in Order

by Philippa Gregory 4 books 4.1(7,944)

The Order of Darkness series is a young-adult historical adventure set in Europe in 1460 and 1461. Luca Vero, a gifted novice recruited by a secret papal order, travels with Brother Peter and Freize to investigate events that frightened communities interpret as signs of the end of the…

Historical fiction

Standalone historical fiction by Philippa Gregory (4 books)

Ranked by rating and voting volume.

Non-fiction

Non-fiction by Philippa Gregory (1 book)

Reference works, biographies and other non-fiction are kept separate from the historical fiction above.

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Recommended from shared genres and periods.

C. F. Dunn 9 books

Tudor court and dynastic fiction in the Battle of Tewkesbury and Yorkist England