Norah Lofts

Out of the courts of 12th-century England strode the legendary figure of Richard of England leading his knights onto the Saracen battlefields, inspired by a vision of the Holy Land....

“It was in the first week of October in the year 1391 that I first came face to face with the man who owned me"....

The House at Old Vine is the second in a trilogy of novels by Norah Lofts about the inhabitants of a Suffolk house from the late 14th century to the middle of the 20th....

“At the age of seven I was a skilful pickpocket. I could sew neatly, write a tolerable hand, make a curtsey and a correct introduction, dance a little and play simple tunes on the harpsichord.”....

The house was built in the Old Queen's time: built for an Elizabethan pirate who was knighted for the plunder he brought home....

A Wayside Tavern tells the story of a Suffolk drinking place from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, until the present day....

Julia Ashley was born to a life of dramatic twists and tragedy. Her future and any possible lasting happiness depended entirely on a "glove marriage"....

When young John Vincent died, the outward respectability of the Cornwall household was undermined....

Eleanor…young, high-spirited, supremely intelligent, heiress to the vast Duchy of Aquitaine – at a time when a woman’s value was measured in terms of wealth....

In the autumn of 1817, the arrival of the Ipswich coach and its occupants – a strange, ill-assorted company – changed the lives of those who lived at the Fleece Inn forever....

For the Spender family, the ancient, beautifully kept house had seemed a godsend....

“All eyes and hair” a courtier had said disparagingly of her...

Over two generations, and throughout the turbulent years of the Civil War, Pargeters comes to stand as a symbol of unity for a household divided by conflicting political loyalties and abandoned by its menfolk....

Ataxerxes, king of Persia, needed a wife. This powerful warrior lord picked the one girl who would have given anything to have been passed over....

When William the Conqueror wished to reward his armourer, he made him a grant of land - land worked by freemen and already belonging to a Saxon lord....

No one at Gad’s Hall could admit what they knew about the room in the attic....

This is the story of Sir Walter Raleigh's relationship with the two women who dominated his life: Elizabeth, his queen, and Bess, her lady-in-waiting and his secret wife....

Sir Godfrey Tallboys was a knight-errant, famous for his success at tourneys....

When, at the Pollards Harvest Supper of 1817, Araminta Glover was seduced by Jan Honeywood, the outcome seemed inevitable....

The Wars of the Roses were over, but for Henry Tallboys the battle for survival went on....