Tracy Borman will examine one of the most extraordinary mother and daughter stories of all time – Anne Boleyn, the most famous of Henry VIII’s wives and her daughter, Elizabeth, the ‘Virgin Queen’. Anne Boleyn is a subject of enduring fascination. For the most part, she is considered in the context of her relationship with...

We ‘Islanders of Wight’ relish our separation from the ‘North Island’. But how far back does this distinction go? Professor David Tomalin’s talk explores the long history of territorial thinking that pre-dates Roman Wight and continues in Island life today. The origin of the Roman name Vectis has long been debated. Tomalin has now traced...

Using recently opened M15 archives Alan Philps brings to life an intriguing and previously unexplored episode of Second World War history. Former Daily Telegraph Foreign Editor and Russian expert Philps will set out the way Stalin created his own reality by constraining and silencing the British and American reporters covering the Eastern front during WWII...

Wendy Joseph KC recently stepped down as one of only a handful of judges qualified to preside over murder trials at the Old Bailey. And one of the few female ones at that. For the first time, she can talk about what it’s really like presiding over and ruling on life-changing cases. Through six extraordinary...

Documents are the lifeblood of historians, enabling them to build a picture of the past but Andrew Lownie argues that our history is being distorted, even censored by governments in defiance of Public Records Acts. A campaigner for greater access of information, he draws from the research for his prize-winning and best-selling biographies of Guy...

Award -winning journalist Isabel Hardman will tell the gripping story of a beloved institution through the people who keep it alive – its nurses, its doctors, its patients, and the politicians who decide its fate. Drawing from interviews with key decisionmakers, from former Prime Ministers and Health Secretaries to NHS bosses, as well as access...

Elly Griffiths will talk about the Last Remains the fifteenth book in the number one Sunday Times bestselling series, The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries. The series won the CWA Dagger in the Library, was longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and has been shortlisted five times for the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the...

Sit back and enjoy a glass a wine while a retired judge, Wendy Joseph KC, a mystery writer, Elly Griffiths, and a former detective, Jackie Malton led by chair, Angela Buckley discuss issues such as true crime versus fiction, the judicial system, the role of the detective in real life as compared to the fictional...

Actress Maureen Lipman, singer Norma Winstone, poet Jeremy Robson and a group of outstanding musicians bring the 2023 Isle Wight Literary Festival to an exciting finale with an original and highly entertaining programme not to be missed. Apart from being one of Britain’s best-loved actresses, the award-winning Dame Maureen Lipman has written a number of bestselling books...