Philippa Gregory

1954

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

Medieval Period Late Medieval Hundred Years’ War Wars of the Roses Lancastrian England Battle of Towton Tudor Period Reign of Henry VIII Henrician Reformation Dissolution of the Monasteries Stuart Period Restoration Restoration London Early Colonial America

Series

Series by Philippa Gregory (5 series)

The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels in Order

by Philippa Gregory 16 books 4.4

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…

4.2

Fairmile in Order

by Philippa Gregory 3 books 4.4

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…

Tidelands

4.3

Dark Tides

4.4

Dawnlands

4.4

Tradescant Novels in Order

by Philippa Gregory 2 books 4.4

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…

Earthly Joys

4.4

Virgin Earth

4.4

Wideacre in Order

by Philippa Gregory 3 books 4.1

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…

Wideacre

3.9

The Favoured Child

4.3

Meridon

4.3

Order of Darkness in Order

by Philippa Gregory 4 books 4.1

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…