The patchy historical record about the real Katherine Swynford has left just faint outlines, which we can only enhance in imagination with our notions of her beauty, charm and steadfastness of character.  Joan was the youngest of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and his last Duchess, Katherine’s four children, believed to have been born in Kettlethorpe, Lincolnshire.  When pausing beside Katherine’s tomb, trying to catch distant echoes of a great love set in a glittering courtly society, do we stop to wonder about the woman buried near her, her daughter Joan? Can we conjure her up in flesh and blood?  If even faintly so can she reveal something of her relations with and feeling about her mother?

This booklet perhaps help the reader to do just this.

• Paperback ISBN: 978 1 870561 34 1Our Price: £4.95