by Huguenot Jo | Jul 15, 2018 | Book review, Film/Broadcast review, Puritanism, The Outcast Woman
Margaret Atwood dedicated her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” to Mary Webster – “Half-Hanged Mary”. Webster was hanged from a tree for witchcraft in 17th century Puritan New England, yet – remarkably – survived overnight, was cut down, and subsequently...by Huguenot Jo | Jun 24, 2018 | Book review, Catholicism, The Huguenots
…by Huguenot Jo | Jun 17, 2018 | Book review
The writer, broadcaster and popular historian John Julius Norwich died on 1 June 2018, aged 88, just after publishing “France: A History from Gaul to de Gaulle”. Poignantly, the author says in the preface: “I know I have said it …by Huguenot Jo | Jun 3, 2018 | Book review, The Outcast Woman
I had to buy a second-hand copy of Aldous Huxley’s “The Devils of Loudon” from Amazon Marketplace, having searched unsuccessfully in independent bookshops for a current edition. “Do people no longer read it?” I wondered. When the vintage Penguin paperback...by Huguenot Jo | May 28, 2018 | Book review, The Outcast Woman, William III
Susan Fletcher’s novel “Witch Light” is set in 1692, a handful of years after my Huguenot ancestors fled France and landed in England – hopeful of a warm welcome, since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had ousted James II (a …by Huguenot Jo | May 21, 2018 | Book review, Puritanism, The Outcast Woman
The stand-off between pagan superstition, Christian rationalism and science is a central theme in Sarah Perry’s second novel The Essex Serpent. Perry was brought up a Strict Baptist; Strict Baptists, like monks, live in the world but not of...