About the event:

Join author Rachel Morris for a highly atmospheric exploration of the charismatic magicians of the Tudor and Renaissance courts and the wives and families who kept the whole magical show on the road.

All things were believable back then – wizards, alchemy, fairies, angels. This is the story of those magical times.

This event will offer a luminous deep dive into the lives of men from Dee to Kepler to Bruno, who were also scientists, astrologers, mathematicians and alchemists.

The remarkable ideas of these magical men still permeate modern culture, from Philip Pullman to C S Lewis. But what do we know of the rest of their households – the lovers, wives, mothers and daughters?

In The Years of the Wizard Rachel Morris also vividly reimagines the less documented lives of the magicians’ families and lovers whose stories have too often been overshadowed by those of the powerful men in their company.

Women supported the travelling households by packing up the libraries, feeding the assistants, entertaining the patrons and educating the children as well as archiving, documenting and collaborating on magical work. Without them, this astonishing era of discovery would have ground to an emphatic halt.

About the speaker:

Former director of the museum-making company Metaphor, Rachel Morris has been part of the creation, design and delivery of some of the most exciting displays, renovations and museums of the last few decades, from the new Cast Courts at the V&A and the Ashmolean, Oxford to the Terracotta Warriors at the British Museum and Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Rachel is also the author of The Museum Makers and two novels.