General Background Book List
- Atchity, Kenneth J.: The Renaissance Reader (ISBN 0-06-270129-0)
Harper Collins Publishers
- Brown, Michele: Ritual of Royalty: The Ceremony and Pageantry of
Britain's Monarchy ; Prentice Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, NJ; 1983.
- Burton, Elizabeth: The Pageant of Elizabethan England
- Gives a general overview of the times. Discusses houses, furniture and
furnishings, silver and ornaments, food and drink, ailments and cures,
pleasures and pastimes, gardens and gardening, cosmetics and perfumes, and
touches on the queen. Focuses on the middle and upper classes but does touch
on some of the peasantry.
- Burton, Elizabeth: The Elizabethans at home
- Castiglione, Baldessare: The book of the Courtier . Translated by
George Bull. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1967. [there are other translations
available]
- Chartier, Roger: A History of Private Life: Passions of the
Renaissance Harvard College 1989
- Guy,John: Tudor England Oxford University Press, 1988 (ISBN
0-19-285213-2
- Elton, G. R.: England Under the Tudors
- A history of the Tudor reign giving ample political, economic, and social
information for all of the Tudor monarchs from Henry VII to Elizabeth I. This
is a history of England instead of a history of each monarch and the
personalities surrounding them.
- Elton, G. R.: The Tudor Constitution , Cambridge University Press
- Emerson, Kathy L.: Wives and Daughters: The Women of Sixteenth Century
England
- Brief personal descriptions of many of the upper-class women in sixteenth
century England. An excellent resource for character research, but not a full
history book.
- Emerson, Kathy L.: The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance
England from 1485-1647 . Writer's Digest Books. 2000
- Girouard, Mark: Life in the English country house .
Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1980. [first two chapters.]
- Haigh, Christopher: Profiles in Power, Elizabeth I
(0-582-00534-5)ps 200
- The book is a overview of Elizabeth's Rule from the aspect of her use and
application of power. It looks at her rule in the vein of how did the use and
manipulate the people around her. (and how they manipulated her.) It is broken
into topics rather than years (Elizabeth and Religion - Elizabeth and the
Throne) It's a quick read and it gives a very different look at the Elizabeth.
- Hartly, Dorothy: Lost Country Life . New York, Pantheon, 1979.
- Haynes, Alan: Sex in Elizabethan England
- From the royal family to maids of honour to period writers the book covers
sex and/or love in Elizabethan times. It includes period portraits and period
depictions of beds and furniture. Discusses mainly sex/love in the upper
classes but does touch on how this would have affected the whole of society.
- Hunt, Alan: Governance of the consuming passions a
history of sumptuary law
- Jensen, De Lamar: Renaissance Europe: Age of Recovery and
Reconciliation
- A overview of life in the Renaissance with a discussion of how things
progressed from Medieval times. Covers the economy, social change, thought,
literature, art, science, technology, religion, the church, humanism, overseas
expansion, the Italian wars, and government in England and on the Continent.
- Jones, Paul V.B.: Household of a Tudor Nobleman
- Loades, David: Tudor Government , Blackwell Publishers
- Loades, David: The Tudor court . Totowa, NJ, Barnes & Noble,
1987.
- Loades, David: Tudor Government . Oxford, Blackwell, 1997.
- Mackie, J.D.: The Earlier Tudors: 1485-1558 ; Oxford University
Press, NY; 1994.
- Mattingly, Garrett: The Armada . Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1959.
- Milliken, E.K.: Lancastrian and Tudor, George G. Harp & Co.,
Ltd, London 1949
- Moncrieffe, Iain & Pottinger, Don: Simple heraldry.
- Nichols, John: The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen
Elizabeth. London, Nichols & Son, 1823.
- Pearson, Lu Emily: Elizabethans at home. Stanford, Stanford Univ.
Press, 1957.
- Rowse, A.L.: The England of Elizabeth. New York, MacMillan, 1963.
[tends to be opinionated, but the facts are sound]
- Rowse, A.L.: The Elizabethan Renaissance Chas. Scribner's Sons,
1971 (ISBN 684-12682-6)
- Sims, Alison: The Tudor Housewife. Sutton Publishing Limited,
1996
- Singman, Jeffery L.: Daily Life in Elizabethan England. Greenwood
Press, 1995
- St. Thomas More: Utopia
- Written in the early 1500s by a Londoner the book was highly regarded in
its time and continues to be so today. It is a good example of period English
writing and would have been known by the well-educated people of Elizabethan
times.
- Stone,Lawrence: The Family, Sex and Marriage In England 1500-1800
Harper & Rowe
- Strong, Roy: Art and power: Renaissance festivals 1450-1650.
- Tillyard, E.M.W.: The Elizabethan world picture. New York,
Vintage, n.d. [dry, but important]
- Trevelyan, G.M.: Illustrated English social history: 2. The age of
Shakespeare and the Stuart period. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1942.
- Wagner, John A.: Historical Dictionary of the Elizabethan World
Britain, Ireland, Europe, and America. Oryx Press, 1999.
- Williams, Neville: All the Queen's Men: Elizabeth I and her Courtiers.
London, Sphere, 1972.
- An intense look at Elizabeth I and the interactions between her and the
men of her court.