I then worked for English Heritage and Glasgow Museums before becoming Chief Curator at the charity Historic Royal Palaces, which looks after the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace, in 2003. Yes, this is a brilliant job, but no, you can’t have it. (Bribes have been offered, and refused.) I especially admired Worsley's elegant use of two essays - Thomas De Quincey's "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" (1827) and George Orwell's "Decline of the English Murder" (1946) - as the framing works between which her intellectual history unfolds.

This non-fiction book outlines the history of British Crime- both real and fictional and their obsession with crime and murder. It’s not just the British, though. I happen to love, love, love British crime fiction. Two of my all- time favorite book series are British Mysteries- one historical and one set in present day. Owens, Mitchell (1 June 2012). "Kensington Palace's New Look". Architectural Digest . Retrieved 6 September 2020. Worsley lives in Southwark [28] by the River Thames in south London with her husband, architect Mark Hines, [1] whom she married in November 2011. [29] With reference to having children, Worsley once said she has been "educated out of normal reproductive function", [30] but she later said her statement had been "misinterpreted and sounded darker than I'd intended." [31] The narrative explains how and why the readers’s original delight in the gory even sordid murders gradually developed into a preference for the more genteel country house murder mystery.

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Law, Katie (27 April 2010). "It is time for Princess Diana to take her place in history". London Evening Standard . Retrieved 1 April 2013. In April 2016, Worsley published her debut children's novel, Eliza Rose, about a young noble girl in a Tudor Court. [24] [25] In 2017, Worsley published a biography of Jane Austen titled Jane Austen at Home: A Biography. [26]

In July 2015, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sussex (where she completed her doctorate). [35] This was an interesting exploration into the fascination of the English with murder and real life crime and of the development of the mystery genre in English literature. Worsley reveals how real-life crimes led to a type of public, obsessive fascination and a form of national entertainment that were eventually the inspirations for novels, plays, and other artistic works. She credits the early English author, Thomas De Quincey, for postulating the idea of "murder as a performance that raised expectations in the public mind." Crime and murder were discovered to provide public entertainment that "would thrill, horrify, and delight" leading to the popularity of the mystery novel. Worsley describes the various mystery authors who arose in the 19th century, the depiction of policing (which early on was slipshod), the rise of the detective, newly discovered scientific means of investigating and solving a crime or murder and discusses how authors created stories that encapsulated the horror, the thrill and finally the revealing of the culprit. Worsley discusses the early "sensation" crime novels, the more cerebral "Golden Age" mystery with its formulaic pattern, and leads into the modern hardcore thriller that is criticized by George Orwell. While this book is a history of the English murder mystery, Worsley's style is not pedantic, but engaging with some humor along the way and informative of new knowledge and insights gained by this reader. The book is based on a BBC presentation which I would like to watch and I am interested in reading her book, Jane Austen at Home. This book has been written to accompany a television series of the same name and does, as a consequence jump around a little in subject matter. The book begins and ends with discussion of an essay - the first being, "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" by Thomas De Quincey and finishes with an appraisal of "The Decline of the English Murder" by George Orwell. This is not really about crime, as such, although many crimes are discussed - it is about how, especially since the nineteenth century, the British began to "enjoy and consume the idea of a murder." In 2016, Worsley presented the three-part documentary Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley in January and Lucy Worsley: Mozart's London Odyssey in June. [17] In September 2016, she was filming an upcoming series A Very British History for BBC Four. [18] In December she presented and appeared in dramatised accounts of the three-part BBC series Six Wives with Lucy Worsley. In 2017, she presented a three-part series entitled British History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley, debunking historical views of the Wars of the Roses, the Glorious Revolution and the British occupation of India. [19]

Lucy Worsley (7 September 2013). "A Very British Murder". The Independent. BBC Books . Retrieved 9 October 2015.