Welcome to my review of The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams, which is much more than a novel about books.
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Set in Oxford between 1914 and 1918, it tells the story of Peggy Jones and her twin sister Maude, two working-class women employed in the bindery of Oxford University Press. Peggy loves books, wants to learn, and dreams of studying at Oxford University. Yet she belongs to the ‘town’ rather than the privileged university ‘gown’, she is a working woman rather than a scholar, and she has responsibilities towards Maude that make pursuing her ambitions extraordinarily difficult.
Then the First World War changes everything.
As men leave for the fighting, women take on new kinds of work. Belgian refugees arrive in Britain. Wounded soldiers fill hospitals. Questions about women’s education and suffrage become increasingly urgent. And, towards the end of the novel, another catastrophe arrives: the influenza pandemic of 1918.
For a homeschool family, this makes The Bookbinder of Jericho an especially interesting historical-fiction choice. It provides an opportunity to study the First World War from the perspective of the people who remained at home, while also exploring social class, women’s education, suffrage, disability, refugees, medicine, book production and the meaning of knowledge. I hope you enjoy this in-depth review of The Bookbinder of Jericho.
The Bookbinder of Jericho Review
Williams describes the novel as a story about ‘knowledge’, particularly who is allowed to make knowledge, who is allowed to access it, and what happens when knowledge is withheld. The author’s own research began in the Oxford University Press archives, where she encountered evidence of women working in the bindery.
That starting point to this review of The Bookbinder of Jericho is important. This is not simply a modern story dressed up in historical clothing. Williams researched the real workplace, the neighbourhood and the people who worked at the Press, using archival material and newspapers to recreate the world in which Peggy and Maude live.
Click here for lots of lovely resources perfect for an Edwardian Unit Study!
What is The Bookbinder of Jericho About?
At the centre of the story are Peggy and Maude Jones, twin sisters living on a narrowboat in Oxford’s Jericho district.
Both sisters work at Oxford University Press. Their work involves handling the pages of books: folding, gathering and preparing them for binding. Peggy, however, is fascinated by the words themselves.
She wants to read.
More importantly, she wants to learn.
Peggy dreams of studying at Oxford, but the university represents a world that is tantalisingly close and yet socially distant. She can work in the world of books without being permitted to become a scholar of them.
This tension gives the novel its central question:
Who gets access to knowledge?
It is a powerful historical question, and one that will run down the entire spine of this review of The Bookbinder of Jericho.
Today, most children in Britain grow up assuming that education is a normal part of childhood and that university is an option open to people from a wide range of backgrounds.
That was not the world Peggy inhabited.
Oxford women had been studying at the university’s women’s colleges since the nineteenth century, but they were not formally allowed to matriculate or receive Oxford degrees until 1920. In other words, during the period of the novel, a woman could study at Oxford but still not have the same formal university status as a male student.
That makes Peggy’s dream particularly poignant.
She isn’t simply asking, ‘Can I go to university?’
She is confronting an entire social system that asks:
The Bookbinder of Jericho prompts the question of what sort of person is entitled to be educated?
Oxford in 1914: Town and Gown
One of the most useful historical ideas to explore alongside this novel is the old Oxford distinction between town and gown.
Gown referred to the university community: students, academics and other members of the university.
Town referred broadly to the ordinary population of Oxford.
This distinction was not merely geographical. It could also represent differences in:
- wealth
- education
- occupation
- social status
- power
- access to institutions
Peggy belongs to the working population of Oxford. She can see the university around her, but she does not automatically have access to the privileges associated with it.
This is one reason the physical setting of the novel matters so much.
The Oxford of The Bookbinder of Jericho contains beautiful university buildings and centres of learning, but Peggy experiences them from the perspective of someone working nearby rather than someone who naturally belongs there.
For children studying the novel, this provides an excellent way to introduce the concept of social class.
History question
Ask:
Can two people live in the same city but experience completely different worlds?
Then consider:
- Where do they live?
- What jobs do they have?
- What schools can they attend?
- And what books can they access?
- Who makes decisions about their lives?
- What opportunities are open to them?
That discussion can lead naturally into Victorian and Edwardian Britain and the enormous inequalities that still existed in the early twentieth century.
Handmade Books
One of the great pleasures of The Bookbinder of Jericho is its attention to bookbinding.
Modern children are accustomed to books arriving apparently finished: printed, trimmed, glued or stitched, covered and sold in shops.
In the bindery described by Williams, however, the book is a physical object being assembled by workers.
The women handle sheets of printed paper and prepare them for the next stages of production.
Williams has spoken about discovering archival film showing women working in the Oxford University Press bindery. She became interested in the question of whether these women ever stopped to read the words passing through their hands.
That is an extraordinary idea for a book-loving homeschool family.
Imagine spending your workday surrounded by books you aren’t necessarily allowed to read.
The symbolism is obvious, but the historical reality is fascinating too.
The women were participating in the production and circulation of knowledge while occupying a much less privileged position than the scholars who would eventually read the books.
The bookbinder therefore becomes a particularly interesting historical figure.
She is not merely making books.
She is helping to make knowledge physically possible.
Click here for my review of another excellent Edwardian Book: The Wind in the Willows!
The Oxford University Press and the First World War
The setting of The Bookbinder of Jericho is not fictional in the broad sense.
Oxford University Press really did experience major changes during the First World War.
The Press’s own historical account records that women filled gaps in the workforce during the war, including jobs on the print floor and in offices. Before the war, women had been largely confined to the bindery; wartime disruption opened some previously male-dominated areas to them.
This is one of the most important historical ideas in the novel: War changed women’s work.
When large numbers of men left Britain to serve in the armed forces, someone had to keep businesses, hospitals, factories, transport systems, farms, and offices running.
Women increasingly filled those roles.
According to the UK Parliament, an estimated two million women replaced men in employment between 1914 and 1918, and women’s share of total employment increased substantially during the war.
But there is an important complication.
Women had always worked.
The First World War did not suddenly invent the working woman.
Many working-class women were already employed in domestic service, factories, shops, laundries, offices and other occupations.
What changed was the type and visibility of women’s work.
The war created opportunities for some women to enter occupations previously considered men’s work.
This is why The Bookbinder of Jericho works so well as a social-history novel: its characters let us see the war not only as something happening in France and Belgium, but also as something transforming ordinary life in Britain.
The First World War Beyond the Trenches
Children often learn the First World War through:
- trenches
- soldiers
- tanks
- battles
- gas
- the Western Front
- remembrance
These are obviously essential parts of the story.
But The Bookbinder of Jericho encourages us to ask another question:
What happened to the people who stayed at home?
Britain became a society organised around war.
Men were recruited and conscripted.
Women entered new forms of employment.
Hospitals treated enormous numbers of wounded soldiers.
Families received letters from the front.
Food and other resources became more difficult to obtain.
Communities changed as people moved in and out.
Refugees arrived.
And the psychological effects of war reached far beyond the battlefield.
This is sometimes called the home front.
The home front was not a separate story from the war.
It was part of the war.
Belgian Refugees: Seeing the War through Civilian Eyes
One particularly valuable historical thread in the novel is the arrival of Belgian refugees.
When Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914, large numbers of Belgian civilians fled their homes.
Britain became one of the countries in which refugees sought safety.
This is an important opportunity for homeschoolers to discuss the difference between:
- a soldier
- a civilian
- a refugee
- a displaced person
The novel gives the war a human face through characters whose lives have been overturned even though they are not soldiers.
That matters historically.
War does not only affect people who carry weapons.
It affects:
- children
- parents
- older people
- disabled people
- workers
- farmers
- teachers
- doctors
- nurses
- refugees
- families separated by borders
The Imperial War Museums’ collections contain photographs and records documenting Belgian refugees and the wider civilian experience of the war.
The Bookbinder of Jericho Review: A Useful Homeschool Discussion
Ask your children:
If someone had to leave their home because it was no longer safe, what would they take with them?
For younger children, this can become a simple drawing exercise.
For older children, it can become a discussion about:
- possessions
- identity
- home
- language
- belonging
- migration
- hospitality
It is also an opportunity to remind children that refugees are real people rather than simply a category in a textbook.
Women and the Fight for the Vote
Another major theme is women’s suffrage.
The women of The Bookbinder of Jericho live during a period of enormous political change.
Before 1918, women could not vote in British parliamentary elections.
The campaign for women’s suffrage involved different organisations and different methods. Suffragists generally pursued constitutional and peaceful campaigning, while the Women’s Social and Political Union, the organisation associated with the term ‘suffragettes’, became famous for more militant tactics.
The outbreak of war complicated the movement.
Some suffrage organisations suspended their campaigning and supported the war effort. Others continued working for women’s rights in different ways.
And then came a major change.
The Representation of the People Act 1918 gave the vote to some women aged 30 and over who met property qualifications.
It did not give all women equal voting rights.
That distinction is extremely important when teaching children about the period.
Full electoral equality did not arrive until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928, when women aged 21 and over received voting rights on the same terms as men.
Click here to read more about our Women’s Suffragettes unit study!
A Wonderful Timeline Activity
Have your children make a timeline:
1860s → women’s education campaigns at Oxford
1870s → women gain increasing access to examinations
1910 → Delegacy for Women Students established at Oxford
1914 → First World War begins
1914–1918 → enormous expansion of women’s wartime employment
1918 → some women gain the parliamentary vote
1920 → women at Oxford finally gain the right to matriculate and receive degrees
1928 → women gain equal voting rights with men
Oxford’s own historical timeline records that women were permitted to attend lectures unchaperoned in 1914 and first received Oxford degrees in 1920.
For a child, that sequence makes Peggy’s ambitions much easier to understand.
She is living before the door opens.
Peggy’s Dream of Oxford
Peggy’s desire for education is one of the strongest aspects of the novel.
It would be easy to read this simply as a story about an ambitious woman.
But historically, there is much more happening.
Oxford was already changing.
Women had been studying at Oxford for decades. Women’s colleges existed, women attended lectures and women were intellectually active.
But formal equality was still a long way away.
The University of Oxford’s own history explains that women were not permitted to matriculate or receive degrees until October 1920, despite having studied there since the nineteenth century.
The first women’s matriculation ceremony took place on 7 October 1920, and the first degrees were awarded just a week later.
This gives the novel an especially interesting historical tension.
Peggy’s dream is not impossible.
But it is premature.
She is reaching toward a future that is only just becoming possible.
That is a recurring pattern in history.
People often live through periods of change without knowing how the story will end.
Click here to read my review of Barbara Mitchelhill’s Secret Suffragette!
Maude and the Language of Disability
Maude is another important character to discuss carefully.
The historical terminology used around disability and cognitive difference was very different from today’s language. Some of the terminology that appears in historical contexts is now considered outdated or offensive.
Modern readers may interpret Maude’s characteristics through contemporary understandings of neurodivergence, including autism, although the novel deliberately places her within the language and assumptions of her historical period.
This creates a valuable history lesson:
Language changes.
The words people use to describe human beings are not fixed.
Ask older children:
- What words were used in the early twentieth century?
- Who decided what those words meant?
- How did institutions treat people who were considered “different”?
- What can modern readers learn from historical attitudes?
- Is it possible to understand a historical person without imposing all of our modern assumptions upon them?
This is also a good opportunity to teach historical empathy.
Historical empathy does not mean approving of everything people did in the past.
It means trying to understand why people thought and behaved as they did within the world they inhabited.
Women as Carers
Peggy’s relationship with Maude also introduces another easily overlooked historical theme: unpaid care.
Peggy has responsibilities that restrict her freedom.
This is historically significant because women’s opportunities were often shaped not only by laws but by family expectations.
A woman might be expected to care for:
- younger siblings
- aging parents
- sick relatives
- disabled family members
- children
Such responsibilities could make education, employment and independence much more difficult.
This is particularly useful for older homeschool students because it introduces the distinction between formal and informal barriers.
A formal barrier might be:
Women cannot receive Oxford degrees.
An informal barrier might be:
You could study, but who will look after your sister?
Both can affect someone’s life.
Click here to learn about Morse code and marconigrams!
The Great War and Wounded Soldiers
The novel also brings wounded soldiers into Peggy’s world.
This is an important reminder that the consequences of warfare did not end when a battle ended.
Soldiers returned with:
- physical injuries
- amputations
- burns
- blindness
- psychological trauma
- chronic illness
The twentieth century saw increasingly serious discussion of what we might now call post-traumatic stress disorder, although the terminology and medical understanding were very different at the time.
For older children, this opens an interesting area of medical history.
Ask:
How did people in 1915 understand psychological trauma compared with how we understand it today?
This can lead into research on terms such as:
- shell shock
- war neurosis
- trauma
- rehabilitation
- military medicine
The aim should not be to diagnose fictional characters, but to investigate how ideas about mental health and war have changed.
Nursing and the Women Who Cared for the Wounded
Women also played an enormous role in wartime medical care.
The novel’s hospital setting provides an opportunity to investigate the experiences of nurses and Voluntary Aid Detachment workers.
The VAD system became an important part of Britain’s wartime medical effort, with women volunteering to assist in hospitals and other medical settings.
The First World War therefore created another contradiction.
Women were often told that certain occupations were unsuitable for them.
Yet during wartime they were expected to undertake extraordinarily difficult and sometimes dangerous work.
This raises an excellent historical question:
Did the war change what society believed women were capable of doing?
The answer is broadly yes, but not overnight, and not equally for every woman.
The UK Parliament notes that women’s wartime employment helped change perceptions of women’s abilities and social roles.
Click here for our in-depth Titanic Unit Study!
1918: The War is Not the End of the Story: Influenza Pandemic
One of the most powerful historical features of The Bookbinder of Jericho is that the First World War does not provide the novel’s only catastrophe.
The influenza pandemic arrives.
This is important because the pandemic is sometimes treated as an entirely separate historical event.
It wasn’t.
The influenza pandemic unfolded while the world was exhausted by four years of war.
People were already:
- malnourished in some areas
- physically exhausted
- displaced
- caring for wounded people
- living with grief
- moving between countries
- travelling in military and civilian networks
The 1918–19 influenza pandemic killed tens of millions of people worldwide; estimates vary considerably, but it was one of the deadliest global disease outbreaks in modern history. UK estimates commonly put the number of additional deaths in Britain at around 228,000.
The pandemic provides a powerful final lesson:
History does not happen one event at a time.
Wars, political movements, technological developments, migrations and diseases overlap.
People in 1918 did not wake up one morning and say:
The First World War is finished, so now we shall begin the next chapter.
They were living through several historical forces simultaneously.
Why The Bookbinder of Jericho works so well for history
Historical fiction has an unusual educational strength.
A textbook might tell a child:
Women entered the workforce during the First World War.
A novel can show a character going to work.
A textbook might say:
Belgian civilians became refugees.
A novel can depict a refugee arriving in an unfamiliar place.
A textbook might explain:
Women were denied equal access to higher education.
A novel can show a young woman who wants to study but is told her place is elsewhere.
That is the great strength of historical fiction.
It gives historical facts a human context.
However, this is also where homeschool parents should teach an important distinction: historical fiction is not the same thing as a primary source.
Peggy, Maude and the other principal characters are fictional creations.
The historical setting is researched, but the author has shaped individual conversations, emotions, and events.
This is not a weakness.
It is simply something children should learn to recognise.
A good historian asks:
Which parts of this are evidence, and which parts are interpretation?
That is an excellent skill to develop from an early age.
A note on historical accuracy
Williams has clearly undertaken extensive research into the setting.
Her research included visiting Jericho, spending time around Oxford University Press, examining archives for evidence of women working in the bindery, and searching newspapers for information about Oxford and the Press during the First World War.
The historical detail is one of the novel’s major strengths.
The descriptions of the painstaking hand-binding process and The Bookbinder of Jericho’s treatment of women’s wartime work, social inequality and the First World War are very thorough.
That said, the novel can be slow in places, particularly because Williams spends considerable time on bookbinding, study and character development.
For an adult reader looking for a fast-paced war novel, that may occasionally feel like a drawback.
For a homeschool family studying history, however, the detailed approach is arguably one of the book’s advantages.
There is plenty to stop and investigate.
The Bookbinder of Jericho Final Review Thoughts
★★★★½ — An excellent choice for historical-fiction study
The Bookbinder of Jericho is particularly well suited to homeschoolers because it connects several subjects rather than fitting neatly into one box.
It can be used for:
History:
First World War, home front, women’s work, suffrage, refugees and the 1918 influenza pandemic.
English:
Historical fiction, characterisation, symbolism, narrative perspective and themes.
Social studies:
Class, gender, disability, education and inequality.
Geography:
Oxford, Belgium, wartime Europe and migration.
Craft:
Bookbinding, paper folding and historical printing.
Citizenship:
Voting rights, equality and access to education.
Research skills:
Comparing fictional narrative with historical evidence.
The novel may not suit every young reader. Its themes include war, grief, serious illness, disability and death, and some of the subject matter is emotionally heavy. Younger children are likely to benefit more from selected extracts, read-aloud sections and historical activities than from reading the complete novel independently.
For teenagers, however, it provides exceptionally rich material for interdisciplinary study.
The Bookbinder of Jericho Review Homeschool Activities: Ages 5–7
1. Make a mini book
Give your child:
- several sheets of paper
- string or ribbon
- cardboard
- crayons or pencils
Let them make a very simple handmade book.
Then explain that Peggy’s job was to help turn loose printed pages into books.
Ask:
- What would happen if the pages were not put in order?
- Why does a book need a cover?
- What happens when a page is damaged?
Extension
Write one sentence inside the book about something the child would love to learn.
Call it ‘My Book of Knowledge’.
2. What would you pack?
Imagine you have to leave your home quickly because it is no longer safe.
Draw five things you would take.
Then discuss:
- Why did you choose them?
- Could you carry them?
- Which item would be hardest to replace?
This introduces the idea of refugees without overwhelming younger children with the most frightening aspects of wartime history.
3. Paper-folding challenge
Give your child a piece of paper and teach them how to fold it into sections.
Explain that historical book production involved lots of careful folding, arranging and sewing.
Ask how difficult would it be to do this all day?
Ages 8–11
4. Build a First World War timeline
Create cards labelled:
- 1914 — Britain enters the war
- 1914 — Belgian refugees arrive in Britain
- 1914–1918 — women take on many new wartime jobs
- 1916 — conscription introduced in Britain
- 1918 — First World War ends
- 1918 — some women receive the vote
- 1918–1919 — influenza pandemic
- 1920 — women receive Oxford degrees
- 1928 — women receive equal voting rights
Have your child put them in order.
Then ask:
Which event would Peggy have been most interested in? Why?
5. Town or gown?
Draw two columns:
TOWN
Who lived and worked in ordinary Oxford?
GOWN
Who belonged to the university?
Then discuss:
- education
- money
- occupation
- social status
- access to books
Finally ask:
Could someone move from ‘town’ to ‘gown’? What might make that difficult?
6. Become a book detective
Find an old book in your house.
Examine it carefully.
Look for:
- title page
- author
- publisher
- date
- illustrations
- binding
- pages
- table of contents
Ask your child:
How was this book made?
Then compare it with how books are produced today.
Ages 12–14
7. Primary source vs historical fiction
Give your student two sources:
Source A: a passage from The Bookbinder of Jericho.
Source B: a genuine historical source about women working at Oxford University Press during the First World War.
Ask them to make a table:
| Question | Historical novel | Historical source |
|---|---|---|
| Who created it? | ||
| When was it created? | ||
| What does it tell us? | ||
| What can we trust it for? | ||
| What might be fictionalised? |
This is an excellent introduction to historical methodology.
8. Was the First World War good for women’s rights?
This is deliberately a difficult question.
Have your student argue both sides.
Argument A
The war accelerated change because women:
- entered new jobs
- demonstrated their abilities
- became more visible in public life
- contributed to the national war effort
Argument B
The war did not create equality because:
- many women already worked
- women still faced discrimination
- the 1918 vote was restricted
- women were expected to give up many wartime jobs when men returned
- full voting equality did not arrive until 1928
Then write a balanced conclusion.
This is excellent preparation for GCSE-style historical argument.
Ages 15–16
9. Was Peggy’s problem gender, class or both?
This is one of the strongest essay questions arising from the novel.
Ask the student to investigate: Peggy is prevented from achieving her ambitions not simply because she is a woman, but because she is a working-class woman. Discuss.
They should research:
- women’s education
- Oxford before 1920
- working-class education
- social mobility
- women’s employment
- suffrage
- university entrance
Then require them to use evidence from both the novel and historical sources.
10. Investigate the real Oxford
Have the student research Oxford in 1914.
Create a historical map showing:
- Oxford University
- Oxford University Press
- Jericho
- the Oxford Canal
- hospitals
- railway connections
- places associated with women’s education
Then ask how physical geography reinforces social divisions.
This can become a surprisingly sophisticated geography/history project.
11. The history of the book
Ask your teenager to research the journey:
Papyrus → parchment → manuscript → printing press → industrial printing → hand binding → mechanised book production → modern publishing
Then investigate:
- Johannes Gutenberg
- movable type
- paper production
- printing presses
- bookbinding
- libraries
- mass literacy
Finally ask:
Why was access to books such an important form of power?
That question takes you directly back to Peggy.
A family discussion: Who owns knowledge?
This may be the best activity of all.
Put this question on the table:
Who should have access to knowledge?
Then ask each member of the family to answer.
Should knowledge be:
- free?
- restricted?
- paid for?
- protected?
- controlled by governments?
- controlled by universities?
- controlled by libraries?
- available online?
Then bring the discussion back to Peggy.
She lives in a world where knowledge is physically close but socially restricted.
A modern child may live in a world where knowledge is digitally close but sometimes restricted by:
- money
- technology
- geography
- language
- censorship
- educational opportunity
Suddenly a story set in 1914 becomes a conversation about the present.
Further research questions for older students
For a more rigorous history course, ask your student to investigate these questions:
- Why was Oxford so important in early twentieth-century Britain?
- Why were women allowed to study at Oxford before they were allowed to receive degrees?
- What was the difference between a suffragist and a suffragette?
- Why did some suffrage organisations suspend campaigning during the First World War?
- How did the First World War change women’s employment?
- What happened to Belgian civilians during the German invasion of 1914?
- How were Belgian refugees treated in Britain?
- What was the Voluntary Aid Detachment?
- What was “shell shock”?
- Why did the influenza pandemic spread so rapidly in 1918?
- Why did some women receive the vote in 1918 but not all women?
- Why did women at Oxford have to wait until 1920 for degrees?
- Why did equal voting rights wait until 1928?
- How much social mobility was possible for a working-class person in 1914?
- How did the production of books reflect wider inequalities in society?
Suggested history-project: Peggy’s World
For a larger homeschool project, ask your child to create a Peggy’s World portfolio.
Divide it into eight sections:
1. Oxford
A map and explanation of the city.
2. The Bindery
A diagram showing how a book was produced.
3. Women’s Work
Examples of jobs undertaken by women.
4. The War
A timeline of 1914–1918.
5. Suffrage
A timeline showing the campaign for women’s voting rights.
6. Refugees
A case study of Belgian refugees.
7. Medicine
Research into wartime nursing and the 1918 influenza pandemic.
8. Education
A study of women’s education at Oxford and the significance of 1920.
For a teenager, each section must include at least one primary source and one secondary source.
That transforms the novel from a reading assignment into a genuine historical investigation.
The biggest lesson of The Bookbinder of Jericho
Perhaps the most important thing this novel teaches is that history is not simply about famous people and famous events.
History is also about ordinary workers.
The women folding pages and the sisters living on a canal boat.
Or the people arriving in a strange country because their homes have become unsafe, and the nurses caring for wounded men.
It is about young women asking why they are allowed to learn but not always allowed the same recognition as men.
It is about people who worked, cared, suffered, hoped and dreamed while enormous events unfolded around them.
And that is precisely why The Bookbinder of Jericho can be so valuable in a homeschool history curriculum.
The First World War is often remembered through its battlefields.
Pip Williams asks us to look somewhere else.
Look at the bindery, the women, the books…
Look at the refugees, the hospitals, the homes…
And look at the people whose names may never appear in a military history textbook.
Because history is not only the story of the people who fought the war.
It is also the story of the people who kept the world going while the war was being fought.
And, fittingly for a novel about a bookbinder, it reminds us that history itself is made from thousands upon thousands of individual stories — some preserved, some forgotten, and some waiting for someone to turn the page.
Useful historical starting points for homeschoolers
For further research, the University of Oxford’s history resources on women and education are particularly useful for understanding the educational world Peggy longs to enter. Oxford’s timeline documents the gradual expansion of women’s educational opportunities and the crucial 1920 change allowing women to matriculate and receive degrees.
The UK Parliament’s resources on women’s suffrage are excellent for investigating the complicated story of voting rights between 1914 and 1928, including the important fact that the 1918 settlement did not establish equal suffrage.
The Imperial War Museums are particularly valuable for research on the wider First World War, civilians, refugees, and the home front.
Finally, Pip Williams’s account of researching the novel is worth reading alongside the book because it shows budding historians that historical fiction can begin with real archival evidence.
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