Kate Williams (historian)

Kate Williams
Born	(1974-11-30) 30 November 1974
Education	Edgbaston High School for Girls, Birmingham
Alma mater	Somerville College, Oxford University of London
Occupation	Historian, author, and TV presenter
Website
Kate Williams

Kate Williams (born 30 November 1974) is a British author, historian and television presenter.

Early life and education

Williams was educated at Edgbaston High School for Girls, Birmingham. She has a BA and DPhil from Somerville College, Oxford where she started as a College Scholar and received the Violet Vaughan Morgan University Scholarship. She has MAs from Queen Mary, University of London and Royal Holloway, University of London.^[1] She began researching Emma Hamilton while studying for her doctorate.

Career

Williams lectures MA degree studies in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Publishing

Williams has had academic essays published in various journals and books:

• "The Force of Language and the Sweets of Love: Eliza Haywood and the Erotics of Reading in Samuel Richardson's Clarissa" in Lumen.
• "Nelson and Women" in Admiral Lord Nelson: Context & Legacy, ed. David Cannadine.
• "Reading Tristram Shandy in the Brothel" in The Shandean, 16.
• "Passion in Translation: 1720s Amatory Writers and the Novel" in Remapping the Rise of the Novel, ed. Jenny Mander.
• "The Rise of the Novel" in The History of British Women's Writing 1690–1750, ed. Ros Ballaster.

Williams writes articles on history for British newspapers including The Daily Telegraph,^[2] and reviews for BBC History, History Today^[3] and the Financial Times.^[4]

In 2010 she was a judge for the Biographer's Club Tony Lothian First Biography Prize,^[5] the Book Drum Tournament 2010,^[6] and the Litro/IGGY International Young Person's Short Story Award.^[7]

A short story, "The Weakness of Hearts", was published in issue 104 of Litro literary magazine.^[8]

Books

Her first book, England's Mistress, a biography of Emma Hamilton, was published by Random House in the UK and US (under the imprint Ballantine Books). It was short-listed for the Marsh/English Speaking Union Prize for the best biography of 2005–06, was selected as a Book of the Year in The Times and The Independent, and broadcast as Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. The film is in production with Picture Palace,^[9] and a stage musical is also in development.

Becoming Queen, about the youth of Queen Victoria and her cousin, Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, was published in 2008. It was serialised in the The Sunday Telegraph^[10] and it was a Book of the Year in the The Spectator and Tatler. The Times selected it as one of the Top 50 Paperbacks of 2009.^[11]

Her third biography for Random House, entitled "Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon" looks at the life of Joséphine de Beauharnais and was published in 2013.

Williams has written a biography of the formative years of Queen Elizabeth II, entitled Young Elizabeth: The Making of Our Queen.^[12] It was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, part of Orion Books, in May 2012. The audiobook version will be read by Williams herself.^[13]

Along with Alison Weir, Tracy Borman and Sarah Gristwood, Williams wrote The Ring and the Crown: A History of Royal Weddings 1066–2011. The book was published by Random House, and was serialised in the Daily Telegraph.^[14]

Williams's first novel, The Pleasures of Men, about a young girl obsessed with a serial killer in Spitalfields in 1840, was published by Penguin Books in the UK and Disney Hyperion in the US and in Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Brazil.^[15]

Television and radio

Williams appears frequently on TV as a presenter and expert, specialising in social, constitutional and royal history. She commented extensively on the 2011 royal wedding and appears often on BBC Breakfast, Newsnight, The Review Show, Sky News, BBC News 24, the Today programme, Broadcasting House, Night Waves, Woman's Hour, Channel Five and various American channels, discussing history and culture and reviewing the news. She covered the Queen's Address to Parliament on BBC One in 2012 and the Queen's Speech for BBC Parliament.

Williams was the social historian on BBC2 series Restoration Home, which aired from 2011 to 2013.^[16]

She presented Timewatch: Young Victoria for BBC2,^[17] acclaimed by The Guardian as "telly history at its best"^[18] and The Secret History of Edward VII for Channel Five.^[19]

She appears often on documentaries, discussing history, literature and culture, including Faulks on Fiction and all three series of The Great British Bake Off, as well as documentaries on subjects including Queen Victoria, Balmoral, Sherlock Holmes,^[20] Jack the Ripper, Nelson's Trafalgar and Elizabeth II.

She wrote and presented the documentary The Grandfather of Self-Help, about Samuel Smiles, for BBC Radio 4.^[21] She is also the presenter of a Radio 4 documentary on the history of the smile, broadcast in June 2012.

Williams is the "Historian in Residence" in Frank Skinner's 2014 radio show The Rest Is History.

Williams is a regular panelist on The Quizeum, which began airing in Spring 2015.

Bibliography

• (Chapter) Admiral Lord Nelson: Context and Legacy (2005): ISBN 978-1-4039-3906-7
• England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (2006) (UK Hardback): ISBN 978-0-09-179474-3
• England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (2006) (US Hardback): ISBN 978-0-345-46194-0
• England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (2007) (UK Paperback): ISBN 978-0-09-945183-9
• Becoming Queen (2008) (UK Hardback): ISBN 978-0-09-179479-8
• Becoming Queen (2009) (UK Paperback): ISBN 978-0-09-945182-2
• Becoming Queen Victoria (2010) (US Hardback): ISBN 978-0-345-46195-7
• (Chapter) The History of British Women's Writing 1690–1750 (2010): ISBN 978-0-230-54938-8
• (Co-author) The Ring and The Crown: A History of Royal Weddings 1066–2011 (2011): ISBN 978-0-09-194377-6
• The Pleasures of Men (2012) (UK Trade Paperback): ISBN 978-0-241-95139-2
• Young Elizabeth: The Making of Our Queen (2012) (UK Hardback): ISBN 978-0-297-86781-4

References

External links

• Official website
• Random House UK mini-website
• Kate Williams at the Internet Movie Database

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