Publications

‘A dazzling achievement, and I loved every page’ Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times

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‘An exceptional feat of imagination. Never have the kingless years been made so vivid, and never has vividness contributed so much to the understanding of them. Keay has brought off an ingenious literary experiment… An entrancing achievement’ Professor Blair Worden, Times Literary Supplement

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‘Deft, confident, deeply learned and provocative, underpinned by an extraordinary sense of the landscape and the architecture … Anna Keay traces with fierce intelligence the remarkable and restless lives’ Rory Stewart

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‘[A] vivid panorama … Keay conjures up with nuance and panache the single most fascinating decade in the history of Britain and Ireland, revealing it to be at once weirdly ancient and strangely modern’ Paul Lay, The Times. Book of the Week and a ‘Best Book’ of 2022.

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‘A much-needed insight into the different perspectives and experiences that informed the Interregnum … Keay offers us a world turned upside down; but also a world made real. That’s a remarkable achievement’ Adrian Tinniswood, The Sunday Telegraph *****

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‘Keay skilfully navigates the reader through the complex history of the 1650s … It is a remarkable achievement, broad-ranging in both geographical and intellectual scope and impressively even-handed in its judgements’ Edward Vallance, Literary Review

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‘an exceptional book about an exceptional time… Keay brilliantly conveys what it was like to live amid the contrasts and contradictions, the heady optimism and the bleak despair, of that tumultuous age … A triumph. It is hard to imagine a better introduction to the volatile world of the 1650s’ John Adamson, author of The Noble Revolt

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‘Deft, confident, deeply learned and provocative, underpinned by an extraordinary sense of the landscape and the architecture within which events occurred – alert to the strange echoes and coincidences of history contained in those spaces – Anna Keay traces with fierce intelligence the remarkable and restless lives of a restless republic’
Rory Stewart

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‘Anna Keay has rescued a period of history which for many will have been uncharted territory, when Britain became a republic. While the figure of Cromwell inevitably looms over the land, we also meet the women and men whose lives were changed by revolution. We meet royalist dissidents, religious visionaries, soldiers, landowners, merchants – a human panorama of our republic. Profoundly scholarly, this book is also an imaginative triumph’
A. N. Wilson

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‘This is an exceptional book about an exceptional time: that one decade in its history when Britain was a kingless state. In a series of meticulously researched and deftly drawn character studies – of idealistic proto-communists, pistol-wielding countesses, zany visionaries, journalistic rakes, through to Protector Cromwell himself – Anna Keay brilliantly conveys what it was like to live amid the contrasts and contradictions, the heady optimism and the bleak despair, of that tumultuous age. The Restless Republic is a triumph. It is hard to imagine a better introduction to the volatile world of the 1650s’
Dr John Adamson, author of The Noble Revolt

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‘This remarkably well researched and beautifully written book takes the reader to the very heart of that extraordinary period of British history: Cromwell’s Commonwealth. The swirling maelstrom of ideas in the late 1640s and the 1650s – when Britons were trying to work out how a modern country might work with an entirely new constitution shorn of a monarch and a House of Lords – is superbly evoked by Anna Keay’s choice of nine very disparate people who each followed their own fates, some to glory and others to disaster.’
Andrew Roberts, author of ‘George III’

‘Keay provides a fascinating portrait of the slippery, charismatic Charles II, and of his genuine love for his son . The brilliance of Keay’s account lies in her ability to convey the subtle intricacies of diplomacy and royal ambition … Keay tells the story with heart-breaking crispness‘
Jenny Uglow, The Guardian

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‘Brilliant and revelatory . Anna Keay has written a superb biography, which paints a vivid picture of the times and of her subject. She has an instinctive feel for character and place, and combines elegant prose with a novelistic gift for narrative.
* * * * The Daily Telegraph

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‘Keay’s study of Monmouth, the first for many years, is meticulous in its attention to scholarly detail and invaluably fills a gap in the historiography. But what distinguishes her as as biographer is her unflagging appetite for the drama and poignancy of the story, and her skill and fluency in portraying it. I can’t remember the last time I read a historical biography that so vividly evokes the atmosphere of another age, whether it be the Caroline palaces of the era or the flat, watery darkness of the battlefield at Sedgemoor’
The Spectator

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‘Anna Keay has effectively turned [the] old-fashioned, censorious judgment of Monmouth on its head by making him the hero of his own story. It is a bold approach, and this vividly told story will remain in the reader’s memory long after the last page of Keay’s book has been turned. No one can deny that Monmouth’s life was anything other than dramatic . Keay’s real achievement in this book is not so much a re-evaluation of Monmouth himself, though that may be well overdue, but her deft analysis of 17th-century personalities and politics . Keay has brought a period almost lost to popular history compellingly alive’
Literary Review

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Returns this glamorous rebel to life. One contemporary described him as someone who lived ‘in a mad ramble after pleasure’, and Keay colourfully recreates that mad ramble: womanising, dangerous sports and princely extravagance. The writing is lively and fast-paced . A vivid, easy read. Tragedy lends Monmouth’s story piquancy. Keay makes the most of his doomed heroism
Mail on Sunday

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Substantial …. The strength of this admirable biography is that it makes the reader consider Monmouth from Monmouth’s point of view, without the benefit of hindsight. Here is Monmouth, and here is his world. It is a considerable achievement’
Andrew Taylor ― The Times
‘Admirable … Keay is a winning guide to the man and the period; this is an account not just of James but of one of the most interesting and fruitful periods of English history. And she does it without jargon, making the personal as political as it in fact was . She brings James, Duke of Monmouth back to life.
Evening Standard

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Powerful. A penetrating and superbly researched biography.
Country Life
Fans of Hilary Mantel are bound to enjoy this new biography of a figure from a fascinating period. Keay provides a lively account of the licentious Restoration court . Ambitious and scholarly . Enjoyable, and should do for the Stuarts what Mantel has done for the Tudors’
The Lady

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‘Splendid. Plotted like a novel, full of riveting detail, The Last Royal Rebel offers a vivid portrayal of politics in the dynastic age, when bloodlines ruled and accidents of nature swayed the fate of nations’.
The Wall Street Journal

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Grounded in mastery of a formidable archival record . Keay displays a gift for eye catching detail, complemented by knowledgeable explanations . Her enthusiasm is infectious.
Times Literary Supplement

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Viscerally compelling. The Last Royal Rebel is the very best sort of historical work. It is based on the meticulous use of an eclectic array of primary sources, and represents substantial painstaking and well-documented research. The action, intrigue, romance, and suspense drive the reader relentlessly toward the stirring conclusion.
Royal Studies Journal