AUTHOR & ART HISTORIAN
Aimee Blackledge
Historical fiction writer and art historian with a DPhil from the University of Oxford, writing darkly comic novels set in the Early Modern world.
DEBUT NOVEL
First in a planned series
Clouded in Clerkenwell
Darkly Comedic Historical Fiction
In 1641 London, two face painters conceal their master's accidental death to seize his studio and chase royal patronage — only to find themselves entangled with a blackmailing anatomist, a formidable widow, and the outbreak of civil war.
Set in the freezing winter before England tears itself apart, Clouded in Clerkenwell is a dark caper about ambition, deception, and what it costs to chase the approval of a world that will never truly value you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am an art historian and historical fiction writer with a DPhil from the University of Oxford, specialising in the material and sensory world of Early Modern Europe.
My doctoral research examined artists as collectors in Early Modern England. I have taught at the University of Oxford and the University of Liverpool, and have worked as a research associate, curator, and post-doctoral researcher, with collaborations including the BBC and Art UK. T.S. Eliot Prize winner Joelle Taylor described my poetry pamphlet Ghost Bones as 'inventive, exploratory, and necessary.' I am a member of the Society of Authors.
CONSULTING
Working in the Early Modern period?
I work with writers as a historical consultant, bringing specialist knowledge of material culture, objects, and daily life in 1500–1800 Europe to fiction that needs to feel genuinely inhabited.
POETRY
Ghost Bones
‘Inventive, exploratory and necessary, Ghost Bones offers an insight into the very marrow of our being.’
—Joelle Taylor, T.S. Eliot Prize Winner 2021
Navigating memory, meaning and possession, this debut poetry collection resurrects personal and cultural ghosts. Poets Aimee Blackledge, Jackdaw Faust and Chris Jenkins explore the things that haunt the bones: gender constructs, heritage and liminal identity.
Get in Touch
Whether you're here for the stories, the history, or somewhere in between, I'd love to hear from you.