Helen Castor

Helen Ruth Castor (born 4 August 1968 in Cambridge^[1][2]) is an English historian of the medieval period and a BBC broadcaster. She was a lecturer in history at Cambridge University and is the author of Blood & Roses (2005) and She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth (2010). Programmes she has presented include BBC Radio 4's Making History and She-Wolves on BBC Four.

Helen Castor graduated from The King's High School for Girls, Warwick, in 1986, and then completed a BA and a PhD at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. She was elected to a Research Fellowship at Jesus College. She is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College and directed history there for eight years before focusing on writing.^[3][4][5]

Castor has worked extensively for the BBC, presenting Radio 4's Making History.^[6] She writes for the books pages of the Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, Times Literary Supplement and the Times Educational Supplement. Castor's book Blood and Roses (2004) is a biography of the fifteenth-century Paston family, whose letters are the earliest surviving collection of private correspondence in the English language. Blood and Roses was longlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in 2005.^[7] It was also awarded the Beatrice White Prize for outstanding scholarly work in the field of English literature before 1590, by the English Association in 2006.

Castor's book She-Wolves (2010) was voted one of the books of the year in the Guardian, Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Financial Times and BBC History Magazine.^[8][9] BBC Four televised a three-part series based on the book in 2012, presented by Castor.^[10][11]

She lives in London with her son and husband.^[4]

• The King, the Crown, and the Duchy of Lancaster: Public Authority and Private Power, 1399-1461 (2000) Oxford University Press ISBN 0198206224
• Blood & Roses (2005) Faber and Faber ^[12]
• She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth (2010) Faber and Faber ^[12]

• Medieval Lives: Birth, Marriage and Death (2013) BBC Four

• Personal Website
• Faber profile
• "Paperback Q&A: Helen Castor on She-Wolves" 11 October 2011 The Guardian
• Profile at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

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