This provides an intriguing challenge for the biographer, who has to piece together a picture of her life from admittedly sketchy sources. Like many medieval women (and women of other eras) Katherine Swynford is known to us only because of her connection to a famous man, John of Gaunt, and references to her are found, often in passing, in historical documents pertaining to him. So did Alison Weir, and she pays tribute to the novel in this biography, in which she does an impressive job of unearthing information about a woman on whom there is very little direct historical record. I read Anya Seton’s historical novel Katherine, about Katherine Swynford, years ago. This was the one nonfiction book I tackled along with a lot of great novels this summer - a biography of Katherine Swynford, mistress and later wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and father of Henry IV.
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