100 books like The Tudors

By John Guy,

Here are 100 books that The Tudors fans have personally recommended if you like The Tudors. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of How to Be a Tudor

Toni Mount Author Of How to Survive in Tudor England

From my list on survival in Tudor England.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve studied and written about the Tudors for many years including a monthly article in Tudor Life magazine, plus I’ve written several successful books looking at the lives of ordinary people in history and now, my first full scale look at the Tudors. The Tudor period is one of the best known in our history and is dominated by so many well-known and fascinating characters but my interest rests with the ordinary folk and how their lives changed so fundamentally in this time. The dissolution of the monasteries changed everyday life for many and marked the end of the medieval period and the beginning of a more enlightened time. 

Toni's book list on survival in Tudor England

Toni Mount Why did Toni love this book?

This is a guide to being a Tudor, everything from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night. Ruth Goodman gives us all the details of everyday life.

History very often concentrates on the lives of the rich and famous, the kings and queens, but it's the life of the ordinary person that always interests me. And this book fully illuminates that.

Known to many as a TV presenter, Ruth writes in an easily readable style.

By Ruth Goodman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked How to Be a Tudor as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On the heels of her triumphant How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman travels even further back in English history to the era closest to her heart, the dramatic period from the crowning of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I. A celebrated master of British social and domestic history, Ruth Goodman draws on her own adventures living in re-created Tudor conditions to serve as our intrepid guide to sixteenth-century living. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this "immersive, engrossing" (Slate) work pays tribute to the lives of those who labored through the era. From using soot from candle wax…


Book cover of The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England

Toni Mount Author Of How to Survive in Tudor England

From my list on survival in Tudor England.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve studied and written about the Tudors for many years including a monthly article in Tudor Life magazine, plus I’ve written several successful books looking at the lives of ordinary people in history and now, my first full scale look at the Tudors. The Tudor period is one of the best known in our history and is dominated by so many well-known and fascinating characters but my interest rests with the ordinary folk and how their lives changed so fundamentally in this time. The dissolution of the monasteries changed everyday life for many and marked the end of the medieval period and the beginning of a more enlightened time. 

Toni's book list on survival in Tudor England

Toni Mount Why did Toni love this book?

Ian Mortimer gives us a fascinating insight into Elizabethan life, and I think this edition of his Time-Traveller’s Guide is as entertaining and informative as the others in the series.

I really enjoyed the details of everyday life, such as what would be in the kitchen or larder, although sometimes the lists were a little long. I enjoy the format of this type of book being written as a travel guide, it is educational as well as easy to read.

By Ian Mortimer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A fresh and funny book that wears its learning lightly' Independent

Discover the era of William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I through the sharp, informative and hilarious eyes of Ian Mortimer.

We think of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603) as a golden age. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory…


Book cover of A Visitor's Companion to Tudor England

Toni Mount Author Of How to Survive in Tudor England

From my list on survival in Tudor England.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve studied and written about the Tudors for many years including a monthly article in Tudor Life magazine, plus I’ve written several successful books looking at the lives of ordinary people in history and now, my first full scale look at the Tudors. The Tudor period is one of the best known in our history and is dominated by so many well-known and fascinating characters but my interest rests with the ordinary folk and how their lives changed so fundamentally in this time. The dissolution of the monasteries changed everyday life for many and marked the end of the medieval period and the beginning of a more enlightened time. 

Toni's book list on survival in Tudor England

Toni Mount Why did Toni love this book?

I enjoyed this study of all the many places of interest with a Tudor connection, from sumptuous palaces to the new theatres, and from forbidding castles to ruined abbeys.

Professor Lipscomb takes us on a journey revealing some hidden treasures and details of fascinating characters that won’t be known to everyone.

By Suzannah Lipscomb,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Visitor's Companion to Tudor England as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Join historian Suzannah Lipscomb as she reveals the hidden secrets of palaces, castles, theatres and abbeys to uncover the stories of Tudor England. From the famous palace at Hampton Court where dangerous court intrigue was rife, to less well-known houses, such as Anne Boleyn's childhood home at Hever Castle or Tutbury Castle where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned, follow in the footsteps of the Tudors in the places that they knew.

In the corridors of power and the courtyards of country houses we meet the passionate but tragic Kateryn Parr, Henry VIII's last wife, Lady Jane Grey the nine-day…


Book cover of Terrifying Tudors

Toni Mount Author Of How to Survive in Tudor England

From my list on survival in Tudor England.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve studied and written about the Tudors for many years including a monthly article in Tudor Life magazine, plus I’ve written several successful books looking at the lives of ordinary people in history and now, my first full scale look at the Tudors. The Tudor period is one of the best known in our history and is dominated by so many well-known and fascinating characters but my interest rests with the ordinary folk and how their lives changed so fundamentally in this time. The dissolution of the monasteries changed everyday life for many and marked the end of the medieval period and the beginning of a more enlightened time. 

Toni's book list on survival in Tudor England

Toni Mount Why did Toni love this book?

This entertaining book is aimed at children but could really be enjoyed by everybody as a light-hearted introduction to the Tudors.

I think the whole Horrible Histories series shows that history can be fun and is a great place for children to start to look into the past. I enjoy looking at history from another perspective: how horrible can it be?

By Terry Deary, Martin Brown (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Terrifying Tudors as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Discover all the foul facts about the Terrifying Tudors with
history's most horrible headlines.
All the foul facts about the Terrifying Tudors are
ready to uncover, including:



who invited Queen Lizzie to visit his brand new toilet

and what you get when you sew the front of a chicken to the back
of a pig





Fully illustrated throughout and packed with horrible
stories - with all the horribly hilarious bits included



with a fresh take on the classic Horrible Histories
style, perfect for fans old and new

the perfect series for anyone looking for a fun
and informative read

Horrible…


Book cover of Black Tudors: The Untold Story

Corinne Fowler Author Of The Countryside: Ten Rural Walks Through Britain and Its Hidden History of Empire

From my list on the British Empire, by a UK historian.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by British colonial history for decades. Learning little about it as a child, I was shocked to learn, as a university student, how little I’d been taught about the British Empire at school. So, I set out to study it. Inevitably, this academic interest later combined with my fondness for country walking. I once trekked 1000 miles from the tip of Scotland–John O’Groats–to the southernmost part of England, called Land’s End. This took me 2 months. I’ve since explored the UK countryside’s colonial past in a humane history book called The Countryside, recounting my rambles through these lovely landscapes with ten walking companions.

Corinne's book list on the British Empire, by a UK historian

Corinne Fowler Why did Corinne love this book?

This is a well-written book with a strong sense of history’s human stories. It is painstakingly researched—but beautifully narrated—and based on archival evidence to explore the lives of Africans in Britain during the Tudor period.

It tells so many diverse stories about Black divers, servants, circumnavigators, and so much more. Teachers have since used this book to update their school lessons about the Tudor period.

By Miranda Kaufmann,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Black Tudors as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2018

A Book of the Year for the Evening Standard and the Observer

A black porter publicly whips a white Englishman in the hall of a Gloucestershire manor house. A Moroccan woman is baptised in a London church. Henry VIII dispatches a Mauritanian diver to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose. From long-forgotten records emerge the remarkable stories of Africans who lived free in Tudor England...

They were present at some of the defining moments of the age. They were christened, married and buried by the Church. They were paid wages like any…


Book cover of England's Other Countrymen: Black Tudor Society

Kirsten Claiden-Yardley Author Of The Man Behind the Tudors: Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk

From my list on everyday life in Tudor England.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian and historic buildings consultant with a longstanding interest in 15th and 16th century England. In addition to my own work on memorials, funerals, and the Howard family, I have worked as a researcher and consultant for television and books, including being a production researcher for the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall. 

Kirsten's book list on everyday life in Tudor England

Kirsten Claiden-Yardley Why did Kirsten love this book?

In this thought-provoking book, Onyeka Nubia encourages us to re-examine Tudor concepts of race and ethnicity in Tudor (and Stuart) England without assumptions based on post-colonial narratives. What emerges is a nuanced picture of complex interactions, attitudes, and prejudices. As well as studying the writings of Tudor scholars, theologians, and authors, Nubia looks at the lives of individual Africans in England, showing that they weren’t “strangers” but lived as part of English communities - whether in cosmopolitan London parishes such as St Botolph without Aldgate, or in rural villages.

By Onyeka Nubia,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked England's Other Countrymen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Tudor period remains a source of timeless fascination, with endless novels, TV programmes and films depicting the period in myriad ways. And yet our image of the Tudor era remains overwhelmingly white. This ground-breaking and provocative new book seeks to redress the balance: revealing not only how black presence in Tudor England was far greater than has previously been recognised, but that Tudor conceptions of race were far more complex than we have been led to believe.

Onyeka Nubia's original research shows that Tudors from many walks of life regularly interacted with people of African descent, both at home…


Book cover of All the King's Cooks: The Tudor Kitchens of King Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace

Kirsten Claiden-Yardley Author Of The Man Behind the Tudors: Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk

From my list on everyday life in Tudor England.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian and historic buildings consultant with a longstanding interest in 15th and 16th century England. In addition to my own work on memorials, funerals, and the Howard family, I have worked as a researcher and consultant for television and books, including being a production researcher for the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall. 

Kirsten's book list on everyday life in Tudor England

Kirsten Claiden-Yardley Why did Kirsten love this book?

Peter Brears takes us ‘below stairs’ at the court of Henry VIII and into the kitchens that fed and waited on up to 1000 people a day. Structured around the different rooms that made up the kitchen, he details the food and drink that was being produced and gives a snapshot of the ordinary people working there. The book is nicely illustrated with sketches of Tudor implements and methods of cooking. For anyone who wants to try eating like a Tudor, the book concludes with a selection of recipes, all of which have been trialed in the kitchens at Hampton Court and adapted for the modern kitchen.

By Peter Brears,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked All the King's Cooks as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Possibly the first industrial complex to be operated in England, the kitchens at Hampton Court Palace were highly organised and built to feed the whole of King Henry VIII''s household. Brears traces their history & functions in this illustrated volume.'


Book cover of Woodsmoke and Sage: The Five Senses 1485-1603: How the Tudors Experienced the World

Sylvia Barbara Soberton Author Of Ladies-in-Waiting: Women Who Served Anne Boleyn

From my list on by Tudor historians.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an author, researcher, and historian writing about Tudor women. As a woman myself, I’m naturally interested in what life was like for those who came before me, and I’m very passionate about writing the lesser-known, forgotten women back into the historical narrative of the period. We all know about Henry VIII’s six wives, his sisters, and daughters, but there were other women at the Tudor court whose stories are no less fascinating.

Sylvia's book list on by Tudor historians

Sylvia Barbara Soberton Why did Sylvia love this book?

What did Tudor England look, sound, or smell like?

This is an innovative work from Amy Licence, historian of women's lives. Using the five senses, she skilfully plunges readers into sixteenth-century England, letting us see, hear, smell, taste, and (almost) touch the Tudor world like we've never experienced it before.

By Amy Licence,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Woodsmoke and Sage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Traditionally history is cerebral: what did they believe, what did they think, what did they know?

Woodsmoke and Sage is not a traditional book.

Using the five senses, historian Amy Licence presents a new perspective on the material culture of the past, exploring the Tudors' relationship with the fabric of their existence, from the clothes on their backs, the roofs over their heads and the food on their tables, to the wider questions of how they interpreted and presented themselves, and what they believed about life, death and beyond. Take a journey back 500 years and experience the sixteenth century…


Book cover of Houses of Power

Elizabeth Goldring Author Of Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist

From my list on Tudor art and architecture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been fascinated by the Tudors since childhood – in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that I grew up in the American Midwest, where Tudor artefacts were few and far between. A family holiday to England, when I was fourteen, sparked the beginning of a life-long love affair, which I have been lucky enough to turn into a career focused on all things Tudor. After receiving my PhD from Yale University, I took up a post-doctoral fellowship in England, at Warwick University, with which I have been affiliated ever since. I am currently an Honorary Reader at Warwick and working on a new book, on Hans Holbein.

Elizabeth's book list on Tudor art and architecture

Elizabeth Goldring Why did Elizabeth love this book?

A learned, yet eminently readable, book which synthesizes and knits together the findings contained in several of Thurley’s earlier, landmark publications, including The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (Yale, 1993) and Whitehall Palace (Merrell, 2008). Houses of Power is a compact volume (and available in paperback, too). I have often taken my copy with me for reference when visiting the sites described in it. Thurley’s illustrations include fascinating conjectural reconstructions of buildings that either no longer survive or have been greatly altered since Tudor times. A wonderful tool when trying to visualize now-lost buildings.

By Simon Thurley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Houses of Power as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What was it like to live as a royal Tudor? Why were their residences built as they were and what went on inside their walls? Who slept where and with who? Who chose the furnishings? And what were their passions?

The Tudors ruled through the day, throughout the night, in the bath, in bed and in the saddle. Their palaces were genuine power houses - the nerve-centre of military operations, the boardroom for all executive decisions and the core of international politics. Houses of Power is the result of Simon Thurley's thirty years of research, picking through architectural digs, and…


Book cover of The Tudors in Love: Passion and Politics in the Age of England's Most Famous Dynasty

Steven Veerapen Author Of Of Blood Descended: An Anthony Blanke Tudor Mystery

From my list on opening the doors of the Tudor Court.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by the early modern period–the Tudors and the Stuarts–since falling in love with Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth, Henry VIII, and his wives when I was a child. I graduated from Horrible Histories as a child to lengthier nonfiction and fiction books about the era as a teenager before gaining a BA Honours, a Masters, and a PhD focussing on Elizabethan language and literature. I now teach English Literature at Strathclyde University. Because I never lost the urge to read everything I could about the Tudors and Stuarts, I began writing about them, too, and because I devour both fiction and nonfiction, I write both!

Steven's book list on opening the doors of the Tudor Court

Steven Veerapen Why did Steven love this book?

Sarah Gristwood is one of our leading experts in Tudor history, and in this nonfiction study, she lays bare the complexities of love and passion at the Tudor court.

This is such a refreshing book because it explores both the similarities and the wild differences between ourselves and our ancestors. Gristwood provides a rich sense of what love, marriage, passion, and the performance of emotion meant to the Tudors.

One cannot quite look at Henry VIII or any of his wives in quite the same way after reading.

By Sarah Gristwood,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Tudors in Love as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A BBC History Magazine Book of the Year

'One of the most important books to be written about the Tudors in a generation.' Tracy Borman

In this groundbreaking history, Sarah Gristwood reveals the way courtly love made and marred the Tudor dynasty. From Henry VIII declaring himself as the 'loyal and most assured servant' of Anne Boleyn to the poems lavished on Elizabeth I by her suitors, the Tudors re-enacted the roles of devoted lovers and capricious mistresses first laid out in the romances of medieval literature, but now with life-and-death consequences for the protagonists. The Tudors in Love dissects…


Book cover of How to Be a Tudor
Book cover of The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England
Book cover of A Visitor's Companion to Tudor England

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