Wendy Pratt

2025-26 Artistic Research Fellow

Margaret Hoby’s Still Room, A Novel

A literary historical fiction novel reimagining Lady Margaret Hoby’s diaries as a narrative told through the lens of rural, domestic and healing activities. Margaret Hoby is a woman controlled through marriage. Her identity, autonomy and resistance is expressed through her control of the domestic interior. With two dead husbands behind her, and no sign of an heir, Margaret finds herself returning to the still room and her herbs and medicines as she navigates the disappointment of her third union.