Melanie King

Melanie King is a social historian and the author of eight books, exploring subjects ranging from 18th-century health cures to espionage during the First World War. She is also the founder of The History Forum, a popular online lecture series featuring history professionals, running annually from September to May.

Renowned for her engaging storytelling and immersive research methods, Melanie brings history to life in unexpected ways. For The Secret History of English Spas, she tracked down obscure mineral springs across England. Her book The Lady is a Spy led her to archives in England, Italy, Canada, and the U.S., tracing the lives of two women held in Moscow’s Lubyanka prison in 1920. Her upcoming 2026 book on the social history of ice cream took her to Bologna’s Carpigiani Gelato University, where she learned to make gelato first-hand.

Melanie holds a degree in International Relations from Sussex University and has lived and worked across the globe. Her varied career includes roles at The Nation newspaper in Bangkok, the EU in Brussels, Chatham House in London, and work with refugees in Thailand and the UK. Before becoming a full-time writer and speaker in 2004, she also served as a university careers adviser.

An enthusiastic and widely travelled speaker, Melanie is committed to making history unforgettable - she promises every talk or book includes at least one ‘strange but true’ fact that audiences will always remember.