Holly Webb’s top tips for writing stories set in the past

Do you like writing about things that happened in history? Author Holly Webb loves it which is why she has set her Maisie Hitchins books in Victorian times! Here Holly shares her favourite children's books set in the past plus some brilliant tips for on how to make your historical stories even more believable.

Nicholas Brooks obituary

Historian, archaeologist and authority on the Anglo-Saxons

John Pickstone obituary

Historian who founded the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester

Richard Hart obituary

Other lives: Key figure in the West Indian trade union movement and nationalist politics, who became an influential historian of the Caribbean

Frank Whitford obituary

Art historian, critic, academic and sometime newspaper cartoonist

Michael Jacobs obituary

Writer, art historian and gastronome with an enthusiasm for the Spanish way of life

Let’s seek inspiration from Dorothy Parker – and revive the salon

Christina Patterson: When members of the Algonquin Round Table had soirees they didn't have 'outcomes' in mind. They wanted an argument

Give us the Mr Men version of history

Open thread: Michael Gove doesn't seem to think Roger Hargreaves' characters make good teaching aids. Can you prove him wrong?

The Glass Room restored

Mies van der Rohe's Villa Tugendhat in Brno, one of the great buildings of European modernism, was the original Landauer House in Simon Mawer's novel. By Fiona MacCarthy

Robert Currie obituary

Other lives: Dedicated teacher, politics lecturer and scholar at Wadham College, Oxford

Historic houses, without the swagger

Kathryn Hughes: Our views of the past have changed, and we're less interested in grand stately homes than their humble kitchens and outhouses

John House obituary

International expert on impressionism who became a professor at the Courtauld Institute

Anthony Sutcliffe obituary

Academic and writer who helped to develop the disciplines of urban and planning history

Good to meet you: Ben Clempson

A reader who uses the Guardian as a teaching aid in his politics and history classes