Joanne Paul is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Sussex. A BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, her research focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. She has written for the Cambridge University Press 'Ideas in Context' series, and has been widely praised for her work on Thomas More, William Shakespeare, Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. The House of Dudley is her acclaimed first book.
Exciting and immersive. An immensely entertaining history, capturing in full Tudor brilliance the cut-throat glamour of the English throne and the most audacious family to play its game * Sunday Times * House of Dudley is a full-blooded affair, as good on the horrors of war as it is on the soft power of the Dudley women, and written in a lively, episodic style that presents each Dudley as a foil to the monarch they served -- Jessie Childs Breathes new life into an old and familiar Tudor story. [She] negotiates the labyrinth of Tudor politics with skill, producing a book much more comprehensible and illuminating than others I've read . . . It's delightful, a joy to read * The Times, BOOK OF THE WEEK * This is riveting stuff: death, desire, power and scandal. Paul has made the most of it, producing a well written and historically grounded page-turner . . . Game of Thrones looks tame compared with the real-life machinations of the Dudleys and the Tudors * Spectator * A hugely entertaining history of three generations of the Dudley family, who dominated the Tudor court * The Times * Joanne Paul's account of this family is rich and compelling. She manages to hit that sweet spot where scholarly history overlaps with dramatic storytelling; she conjures up the look and feel of Tudor life, down to the clothes, the medicines and the furniture, while also being a skilful filler-in of political background . . . Whether or not you have ever succumbed to Mantelmania, you will find yourself drawn in, fascinated, and richly informed * Telegraph * An enthralling read told by Paul with great verve and an eye for the telling detail . . . The family's complex history is concisely and compellingly related * Literary Review * The crowning jewel in its genre . . . I can't recommend this book enough. Unputdownable -- Lindsey Fitzharris When reading Joanne Paul's lively history of the house of Dudley, it is impossible not to be reminded of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy . . . Paul uses the experiences of the Dudleys to light up odd corners and backroom spaces of Tudor palace life * Mail on Sunday * Joanne Paul chronicles the meteoric rise and deadly fall of the Dudleys * BBC History Magazine * Joanne Paul reveals how the might of the Tudor dynasty was built on the blood and sweat of three generations of another family - the Dudleys * BBC History Magazine *