Author Archives

Stephen Basdeo

Stephen Basdeo is a historian and writer based in Leeds, UK.

John Beaumont’s Boudicca (1647) | Stephen Basdeo

The Ancient Britons’ rebellion was depicted as their last gasp in the fight for independence against the domination of the Roman Empire.

Remembering Rosemary Mitchell | Stephen Basdeo

The author of numerous scholarly articles and the monograph Picturing the Past, Rosemary was truly a leading scholar. Having retired from Leeds Trinity University in 2019, she then retrained to serve in the Church of England and was due to take up a post as a deacon at a church in Skipton, Yorkshire, but her illness and death prevented this.

A Tale of the Great Plague (c.1840) | Thomas Hood

Thomas Hood (1799–1845) was born in London and, his father being a bookseller, grew up around books. He went on to become a poet, novelist, and satirist. Most famous for his poetry, William Michael Rossetti in 1903 declared him “the finest English poet” between the generations of Shelley and Tennyson.” Although by their nature pandemics are very serious affairs, this particular short story takes a somewhat lighter approach to portraying a pandemic.