'Courting India' and 'The Wife of Bath' feature in BBC History Magazine's Books of the Year

courting india and wife of bath book covers

Congratulations to Professor Nandini Das and Professor Marion Turner whose books feature in this year's BBC History Magazine's Books of the Year. The books were selected by a panel of historians.

Professor Nandini Das's Courting India was selected by two historians, Hannah Cusworth and Michael Wood. Michael Wood describes the book as 'fascinating', while Hannah Cusworth comments: "Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire (Bloomsbury) is ostensibly a study of Sir Thomas Roe’s time as the East India Company’s representative to the Mughal court from 1615 to 1619, but it is so much more than that...Her book makes us rethink the idea that Britain was always dominant in India.

Professor Marion Turner's The Wife of Bath: A Biography was selected by Emily Brand. She comments: "Marion Turner’s ‘life story’ of Chaucer’s most interesting creation – Alison of Bath, serial wife and wandering woman – falls into two parts. The first explores the lives of and opportunities for women in 14th-century Europe in an illuminating social history. The second traces Alison’s literary ‘afterlives’, from Shakespeare to Zadie Smith, and her persistence as a feminist icon. Both combine rigorous scholarship and an eye for entertaining detail."

Read more on the BBC History Magazine website.

Professor Marion Turner's new publication, Chaucer Here and Now, has also been reviewed by the Independent as one of the 'books of the month' for December. The book accompanies an exhibition on Chaucer launching at Bodleian Libraries this Friday, 8 December.