author
Bertha Meriton Gardiner
d. 1925
A self-taught English historian, she wrote brisk, accessible books that introduced general readers to the French Revolution and the English Civil War. Her work helped bring big political history to a wider audience at a time when few women were recognized in the field.
2 Audiobooks
The French Revolution 1789-1795
by Bertha Meriton Gardiner
King and commonwealth : A history of Charles I. and the great rebellion
by Bertha Meriton Gardiner, J. Surtees (James Surtees) Phillpotts
About the author
Born Bertha Meriton Cordery in London in 1845, she became known as an English historian and author of popular short histories. She had little formal education, but built a career through serious independent study and a clear, readable style.
She is best remembered for books on the French Revolution and on seventeenth-century England, including The French Revolution, 1789–1795 and works on the struggle between monarchy and parliament. In 1878 she married the historian Samuel Rawson Gardiner, and her own writing developed alongside the wider historical interests of that circle.
Gardiner died on January 5, 1925. Though not as widely known today as some of her contemporaries, she stands out as a writer who made complex political history approachable for ordinary readers.