Helen Castor

Castor was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2017.

Castor works extensively for the BBC including presenting Radio 4's Making History and She-Wolves on BBC Four. In 2013 she was a member of the winning team on Christmas University Challenge, representing Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.

She-Wolves (2010) was voted one of the books of the year in the Guardian, Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Financial Times and BBC History Magazine. BBC Four televised a three-part series based on the book in 2012, presented by Castor.

Castor's book Blood and Roses (2005) is a biography of the 15th-century Paston family, whose letters are the earliest surviving collection of private correspondence in the English language. Blood and Roses was long-listed for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in 2005. It was also awarded the Beatrice White Prize for outstanding scholarly work in the field of English literature before 1590, by the English Association in 2006.

Helen Castor graduated from The King's High School for Girls, Warwick, in 1986, and then completed a BA and a PhD at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. She was elected to a Research Fellowship at Jesus College. She is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.

Helen Ruth Castor FRSL (born 4 August 1968 in Cambridge) is a British historian of the medieval period and a BBC broadcaster. She was a lecturer in history at Cambridge University and is the author of Blood and Roses (2005) and She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth (2010). Programmes she has presented include BBC Radio 4's Making History and She-Wolves on BBC Four.