Black England was originally published in the early 1990s after Gretchen visited a Bloomsbury bookshop in search of a book on Black British history, only to be told there were no Black people in England prior to 1945. Gretchen immediately went away and wrote Black England. This is an updated edition with an introduction from Zadie Smith – Black England is often cited among prominent Black writers as the book that paved the way for their own work, including Zadie Smith, David Olusoga, Benjamin Zephaniah and more.

Black England explores an often overlooked period of Black British history – the Georgian era. Many people see Black history as only reaching as far back as the Windrush generation, but by the C18th there was a growing Black population in the UK made up of both servants and more prosperous citizens. There were churches for Black people, Black-only balls and organisations for helping Black people who were out of work or in trouble. Black England tells the story of this era through the lives of several Black Britons of the time, in vivid and often moving detail.

Gretchen will be in conversation with Edson Burton, a Bristol based Historian and writer.

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