Nationality British Period 1995-present | Name Ian Mortimer | |
 | ||
Born 22 September 1967 (age 56)
Petts Wood, England ( 1967-09-22 ) Genre history, historiography | ||
Burning questions 5 a conversation with ian mortimer aka james forrester
Ian James Forrester Mortimer (born 22 September 1967) is a British historian and writer of historical fiction. He is best known for his book The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, which became a Sunday Times bestseller in paperback in 2010.
Contents
- Burning questions 5 a conversation with ian mortimer aka james forrester
- Biography
- Personal life
- Honours
- Historical works selected
- James Forrester historical fiction
- References
Biography
Mortimer was born in Petts Wood, and was educated at Eastbourne College, the University of Exeter (BA, PhD, DLitt) and University College London (MA). Between 1993 and 2003 he worked for several major research institutions, including the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, the University of Exeter and University of Reading.
Mortimer has written a sequence of biographies of medieval political leaders: first Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, then Edward III, and Henry IV, in addition to 1415, a year in the life of Henry V.
Mortimer's best known book, however, is The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, first published in the UK in 2008. He is also well known for pioneering the argument (based on evidence such as the Fieschi Letter) that Edward II did not die in Berkeley Castle in 1327 in his first two books and an article in the English Historical Review.
Mortimer has also carried out research into the social history of early modern medicine. His essay "The Triumph of the Doctors" was awarded the 2004 Alexander Prize by the Royal Historical Society. In this essay he demonstrated that ill and injured people close to death shifted their hopes of physical salvation from an exclusively religious source of healing power (God, or Christ) to a predominantly human one (physicians and surgeons) over the period 1615–70, and argued that this shift of outlook was among the most profound changes western society has ever experienced.
In 2011, Mortimer entered the genre of historical fiction, publishing the first book from his Elizabethan era Clarenceux Trilogy using the pen name of James Forrester. James Forrester are Mortimer's middle names.
Personal life
Mortimer is the nephew of the British tennis player Angela Mortimer. He lives in Moretonhampstead, in Devon, England.
Honours
Mortimer is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS). On 12 February 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA).