Possession by A.S. Byatt - one of my biggest influences

A tremendous roller coaster of styles and times, the original of the research-based plot, with pages of fine poetry. It's remarkably like the process of archive research. Every word is beautifully chosen but somehow you rattle over some of them, just as you would if really handling old letters in a freezing room in a Lincolnshire mansion, or in a boiling dusty basement in the British Museum. I remember well the 'ironworks' where Prof Blackadder has his lightless office - all swept away now for the Disneyland-like space of the Great Court. That was a sad loss and I'm sure that The British Library's St Pancras offices will never have the same atmosphere. I also remember the Great Storm of 1987 - I was in Sussex at the time too - and the specificity of that night of destruction gives even the modern scenes some historical distance now. As also do the feminist emphasis of Maud, and her womens's studies library. That would never have seemed, in the 80's, to be something we'd lose, but now of course that kind of feminism is a dead letter on any university campus. Why not 5 stars? - [Spoiler alert-] The final scene in the graveyard was a little too rushed, I would have liked more Gothic descriptions of coffins etc. And I was unconvinced by Mortimer Cropper meekly climbing down from the role, so well portrayed throughout the book, of acquisitive villainy. Still, a great read and a great book. It stays with you.

She didn't just live as a man, she fought as one Hannah Snell: The Secret Life of a Female Marine, 1723-1792 by Matthew Stephens

Hannah Snell served as a marine in the Royal navy in the 1740s, under the name of James Gray. According to the legend her true sex was never detected during several years on the lower deck. She was even wounded in action - possibly at the siege of Pondicherry, possibly elsewhere - and kept the secret by insisting on removing a musket ball from her own groin! Later, back in England, she exploited her reputation by touring in uniform and giving drill demonstrations. I first heard of her when visiting the Warwickshire Regiment's museum, though her connection to the regiment or its predecessors is not apparent from this book. She was born in Worcester and supposedly first put on uniform by joining Guise's Regiment in Coventry in 1745, but this seems much less convincing than her later marine service. The main source for her biography is a sensationalist account written in 1750 by Robert Walker. Stephens has traced the documented facts such as Hannah's marriages and children and the service of 'James Gray'. He points out that in many instances Walker's account is contradicted by the facts - she could not have been receiving 500 lashes at Carlisle Castle because she was in fact having the baby in London! The truth remains elusive, even after finishing this little book (which includes all of Walker's account) though the image of a young woman, no doubt strong and muscular enough to be taken for a boy, yet able to act as a wardroom servant and even sing for his masters, remains alluring. I was left wanting to know more. I wonder what further research has been done, or can be done - the life of an illiterate member of the working class, in the days before universal registration and censuses, will perhaps always remain frustratingly shadowy, and, in the case of Hannah, hidden by legend. One annoyance is that on a Kindle the illustrations can't be enlarged, and text notes don't link to the text, but have to be read in a block at the end. However, this is well worth reading and buying, and very good value.