Author: Mark Walker
Publisher: The History Press, 2009
Price: £12.99 (hardback)
Isbn: 9780752451602

This elegant (except minuscule Latin print – you need the Hubble Telescope) and well-chosen miscellany of texts, ranging from Julius Cæsar via historians (Bede, Gildas, Nennius), scientists (the two Bacons, Harvey, Newton), Renaissance Goonery (George Ruggle’s Ignoramus playlet), poets (Bourne, Buchanan, Landor, Swift), to modern Anglo-Latin verse ably traces the rich 2,000-year nexus of Roman-British history and literature.

Fortean material includes King Arthur’s astonishing fighting feats and no less remarkable bodily preservation, Merlin the magician, St Alban’s martyrdom, the Loch Ness Monster’s début, a mediæval vampire and weird lunar phenomena. Plus, a dash of soft porn with Lady Godiva’s bare-backing as told by Roger of Wendover.