Award-winning biographer and novelist to give free public lecture at Holburne Museum

Stella Tillyard, the best-selling historian and biographer, will be coming to Bath on Tuesday 22 January to give an open lecture as part of Bath Spa University’s Centre for History & Culture annual lecture series.

Dr Tillyard’s lecture is entitled ‘Bright metal on a sullen ground: the idea of character in English biography, history and the historical novel’. She will trace the idea of character in English biography, history and the novel from William Shakespeare to Wolf Hall and ask whether the historical novel has now eclipsed biography and history as our favourite way of learning about the past.

Tillyard is best known for her biography Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox 1740 – 1832 which won several prizes, including the Meilleur Livre Etranger, and was made into a highly successful six-part BBC series.

Last year Tillyard published her first historical novel, Tides of War, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize. The historian Simon Schama described it as, “Dazzling”, and added, “I love this book. It’s beautifully written, the characters are deeply involving and the historical settings so right - in short, Tides of War is a triumph.”

Looking forward to the event, Dr Tillyard said: “I am greatly looking forward to speaking in Bath, a city with a tremendous culture and history that also played host to many of the most famous characters of the last two hundred and fifty years of British history.”

The lecture begins at 6:00pm, all are welcome and entrance is free. This event follows the recent news that Bath Spa University and the hosting venue, the Holburne Museum, announced a new partnership to promote their academic and cultural collaboration with the University sponsoring the Holburne’s latest exhibition: ‘Painted Pomp: Art and Fashion in the Age of Shakespeare’, which opens on 26 January. The exhibition will feature nine exceptional full-length Jacobean portraits by William Larkin, painted around 1613-18.