To The Fair Land on Tour!

This week, 26 April to 2 May 2021, To The Fair Land is on a blog tour, covering twenty one blogs in seven days with a mix of articles, author q and as, extracts and reviews.

You can follow the tour here:-

26 April 2021

Quirky Book Reads - Review

Kellyschuknecht.com - Meet the Author

Proud Book Reviews - Review

27 April 2021

Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers - Excerpt

Cup of Toast - Interview

33 South Textworks - Review

28 April 2021

Chez Maximka - Review

B for BookReview - Author Q and A

Everywhere & Nowhere - Excerpt

29 April 2021

What Cathy Read Next - Review

Historical Fiction With Spirit - Guest Blog - The Burney Family and To The Fair Land

The Story Scribbler - Review (Instagram)

30 April 2021

Northern Reader - Review

The Magic of Wor(l)ds - Q and A

@theb00kreader - Instagram

1 May 2021

Rev Rebecca Writes: Eat, Write, Pray - Review

Jess Bookish Life - Review

Bibliostatic

2 May 2021

Bookwormsina - Review (Instagram)

Ceri's Little Blog - Review

DonnasBookBlog - Q and A

Thank you to all the bloggers and Instagrammers who took part!

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Dickens and Chickens

On 17 April 1860, in fields near Farnborough, Charles Dickens joined an audience amongst whom were the Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, as well as a number of MPs and clergymen, to watch the American John Carmel Heenan and England’s Tom Sayers (the Brighton Titch) beat one another blind and bloody in a bare-knuckle fight that lasted nearly two and a half hours. The fight ended in a draw when Aldershot police stormed the ring, forcing the fighters and their illustrious spectators to flee the scene. It was the brutality of this match that signalled an end to the bare-knuckle era and prompted the development of the Marquess of Queensberry’s rules. Dickens’s interest in pugilism was of long standing. In 1848 Dombey and Son , which had been published in serial form over the preceding two years, came out in book form. One of many of his novels that draws on the world of the prize fighter, it introduces the unforgettable Mr Toots, a would-be man about town, an...

The Bristol Boys: The Bare Knuckle Champions and The Hatchet Inn

The Hatchet Inn on Frogmore Street in Bristol is all that remains of a row of seventeenth-century timbered houses dating back to 1606 – making it one of the city’s oldest pubs. It was substantially altered in the 1960s, and these days it stands on a traffic island. But at one time it boasted extensive grounds – and amongst the facilities on offer was a bare-knuckle boxing ring. Plaque at The Hatchet Inn, Bristol The pub’s connection with Bristol’s boxing heroes is commemorated in a plaque illustrating five of Bristol’s champions – one of whom, Hen Pearce, features in Bloodie Bones: A Dan Foster Mystery. Hen Pearce (Detail) Bristol born Hen Pearce, The Game Chicken (1777 – 1809), a former butcher’s boy, became champion of England in 1805. He was a hero inside and outside the ring. In 1807 he climbed onto the roof of a building in Thomas Street, Bristol to rescue a servant girl from a fire. Always a popular figure, this courageous act inspired many eulogies in pr...

'We will have a fire': arson during eighteenth-century enclosures

Join our Winter Solstice Blog Hop! Thirty writers throw light on a dazzling range of topics . Follow the links at the end of this article to be enlightened and brightened by our blogs... “Inclosure came and trampled on the grave Of labours rights and left the poor a slave And memorys pride ere want to wealth did bow Is both the shadow and the substance now.” John Clare, The Mores On 1 May 1794, the writer Hester (Thrale) Piozzi of Streatham Park recorded in her diary that the furze on the common had been set on fire in protest at the enclosure of land “which really & of just Right belonged to the poor of the Parish”. Yet even while she acknowledged that the protesters had justice on their side, she criticised them for not “going to Law like wise fellows” and concluded: “So senseless are Le Peuple , & so unfitted to be souverain”. The senseless poor of Streatham were not unique. During the eighteenth centu...

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