Leeds, the Biography — Chris Nickson

360 AD: A woman buries the remains of her husband in a stone sarcophagus in Northern Roman Britain. 1207: A man in desperate need of money plans a new street to be called Briggate 1645: A girl named Alice Musgrave of Vicar Lane is the first victim when the plague strikes Leeds. 1850: A heartbroken woman walks down a set of steps into the River Aire. 1963: Two young men, fired by the new music, wait to see the Beatles at the Queen's Hall These and more than 20 other stories make up Leeds, The Biography. It's history, but it's more. It's stories of the people and places in the city. The Battle of Holbeck Moor. The remnants of Ralph Thoresby's wondrous museum. How Leeds grew from being a tiny settlement around a river ford to one of Britain's great places. It's human history. Based on fact, events, sometimes on tales. It's the past come to life in faces and speech you'll know as if they lived next door. It's a history of Leeds in short stories. It's all of us. Who we were, hands stretching back across time.