David Ebsworth has built a reputation for lively and “not to be missed” stories about the untold background to his books, with subjects that include…
1884 – Wrexham’s Victorian Mysteries: David Ebsworth chats about the sometimes weird factual background to his November 2024 novel, Death Along the Dee. The Wrexham Advertiser and all its glories, the Lager Beer Company, Chester’s Fenian Threat and Black Sunday riots, Wrexham AFC, Wrexham Jacobites, the Tithe Wars and the Welsh Land Question, A.N. Palmer, women’s cycling and much more.
1876, Wrexham’s “Year of Wonder”: Yes, Wrexham really did have an annus mirabilis. Local author David Ebsworth talks about the background to his latest and twelfth novel, Blood Among The Threads, a mystery thriller set in Wrexham during 1876 – a year in which everything that happened in town was itself almost “stranger than fiction.” Travel back in time to find out more about the novel itself and Wrexham’s “Year of Wonder” – and the characters who made it happen.
Liverpool 1911 – A Trip Through Time and Some Quirky Secrets: Bootle-born Wrexham author David Ebsworth goes far beyond the story of Liverpool’s “near to revolution” transport strikes in this talk about how he recreated the city in 1911, its West African rebel seamen, its Suffragettes and their songs, its mysterious Welsh influences, its streets and tram system, its Top Ten Hit Parade and his own personal connections to the 2022 novel, The House on Hunter Street.
The Chester Chronicles: David Ebsworth’s novels have a strange habit of returning to Chester as one of his settings. Recreating 6th Century post-Roman Deva, the City of the Legions, for The Song-Sayer’s Lament. Tracing the threads of Jacobite plots, rebellions and family threads through The Yale Trilogy and The Jacobites’ Apprentice. Finally, the Fenian menace in historical crime novel Death Along The Dee. Join the author for this one-hour romp about Chester’s streets – maybe as you never saw them before.
Five Things You (Almost Certainly) Didn’t Know About the Spanish Civil War: Author David Ebsworth talks about the Spanish Civil War – the background to three of his novels – with a focus on local links to the conflict, Franco’s use of Battlefield Tourism as a propaganda tool, the bizarre role of the British Establishment and the final days of the Spanish Republic in Alicante and beyond.
We’ll Always Have Paris! Travel back in time to the years of the Second World War – as you’ve almost certainly never known them before. Author David Ebsworth tells the “stranger than fiction” stories behind his latest novel, A Betrayal of Heroes. Tales of Casablanca and Brazzaville, of the Spaniards who fought for Free France, of the 1940s celebrities and spies who fill the novel’s pages. Prepare to be amazed!
Visit the War Routes of Spain! In a remarkable addition to his existing talks about the Spanish Civil War, David Ebsworth now takes us on one of Franco’s real-life 1938 battlefield tours. Join him – and 1930s Coventry school-teacher, Mary Walker, an ardent supporter of General Franco – as we meet some of their actual fellow-travellers, hear from the tour guides, encounter a few new heroes and villains, visit some of the astonishing sites and works of art along the routes and the coastal Camino, and reveal completely new secrets about history’s most audacious propaganda exercise.
Elihu Yale and his Wicked Wife: Elihu Yale is a major figure in our history, though now mostly forgotten. One of the first nabobs, Yale bequeathed his name to one of the world’s most famous universities. At the same time, he left nothing to poor Catherine except the slur of branding her a “wicked wife.” His reputation is tarnished by his involvement, through the East India Company, in the slave trade but the true story of Catherine and Elihu Yale is still “stranger than fiction” – as author of the Yale Trilogy, David Ebsworth, explains in this one-hour session.
Murder & Mayhem with David Ebsworth: An hour-long performance in which the author reveals some of the “stranger than fiction” true stories which helped him find original ways to kill off some of his characters and create the background to his various historical thrillers and crime novels. Not for those of a nervous disposition!
David Ebsworth’s “Stranger Than Fiction”: Author David Ebsworth captivates audiences with an hour-long performance in which he reveals some of the “stranger than fiction” true stories which inspired both his own journey as a writer as well as his ten historical fiction novels.
A Passion for the Cymru – Crime Cymru! Liverpool-born author David Ebsworth chats about how Wales and Wrexham – his home for more than 40 years now – have inspired his latest historical crime novels, The House on Hunter Street and Blood Among The Threads, as well as a Wrexham History guidebook, Wrexham Revealed. Lots of stranger than fiction yarns.
The Zulu War – Ten Things You (Almost Certainly) Didn’t Know: Fans of the 1964 movie Zulu, as well as anybody with a passion for facts stranger than fiction, will be thrilled by this show. What was this unique conflict all about? The Welsh connection? How has it been portrayed on screen and in books? Why were there so many disasters and tragedies? Who was John Dunn? How did it all finally end? And what was the war’s lasting legacy? The background to his novel, The Kraals of Ulundi.
Waterloo – Ten Things You (Almost Certainly) Didn’t Know: With all we think we know about history’s most famous battle, Bonaparte’s final campaign is still shrouded in myths and misunderstandings. The original “Great War”; the astonishing cost; the impossible odds; Wellington’s “German” army; Waterloo teeth; the women who fought on the battlefields; and much, much more!
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