Sometimes travel can be pleasingly serendipitous, as it was for us when we traveled to West Yorkshire, to the town of Hebden Bridge, on the trail of my wife’s favorite, Sylvia Plath, and her husband, Ted Hughes. We soon discovered we were in fact a scant eight miles from the town of Haworth—where, it turns… Continue reading In Search of the Brontës

If you grew up reading and/or watching tales of the great medieval outlaw hero Robin Hood robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, you probably dreamt of visiting Nottingham and Sherwood Forest. I knew I did. I watched the Richard Greene The Adventures of Robin Hood TV series (1955-59) when I was quite young (“Robin Hood,… Continue reading Nottingham, Sherwood, and the Legend of Robin Hood

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to get in your DeLorean or your Way-Back Machine and scoot back in time half a millennium or so to Tudor England, but aren’t sure you’d relish the lack of penicillin, unhealthy food preparation, and unsanitary waste management, you’ve got a chance right now to have… Continue reading Much Ado about Shakespeare’s Globe

by Stacey Margaret Jones In the months before our April trip to New York City, we watched the HBO series The Gilded Age, and I listened to the companion podcast, hosted by one of the NYC historians on the Bowery Boys podcast, which I’ve subscribed to for years. I love the stories of “Old New York,” when Central… Continue reading Edith Wharton’s New York