What are The H Files?

I write history books — and every time I write a book, so much gets left behind.

There are good reasons for that. I’m telling a story, and that means making choices: every paragraph, every sentence has to move the story forward, to say something about its protagonists, to build the world in which they live.

But there are so many other stories I could tell along the way. People whose lives play out in the margins; moments that would look different through another pair of eyes; sources containing wonders I have to pass over; thoughts and questions scrawled in piled-up notebooks.

Those are my H Files, and here on Substack is where I’m going to unpack them: to send dispatches from behind the scenes of the books I’ve written and the one I’m writing now.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, please join me!

Why subscribe?

Here’s the plan. There’ll be a post a week, delivered directly to your inbox, of which at least one every month (and sometimes more) will be free for everyone to read. All posts will be available in audio (read by me) as well as written form.

If you like what you see (or hear), you could consider supporting my work with a paid subscription. That way you’ll get access to every weekly post and the whole archive as it grows, as well as membership of the community chat where we’ll talk about the medieval and Tudor world and the reading and writing of history.

And everyone who joins the top subscription tier — the H List — will get a personalised signed copy of one of my books as a welcome and thank you. You’ll have the choice, every year, of either individual answers to three of your questions about history (the history I know about!) and historical writing, or feedback on up to 3,000 words of your own historical work.

Whatever you choose, thank you for being here.