I discovered Dr Suzie Edge on TikTok earlier this week; and I was hooked from the first video. In the first video I saw, she was teaching the internet why there are so many royals with the same name – all with a pen and paper. No fancy graphics or edits required. Just the sharing of a wealth of knowledge.
I love royal history – namely from the Tudors (our Bloody King Henry VIII) onwards, through to Queen Victoria. So, when I found Dr Edge on #historytok, I couldn’t resist.
What I found interesting, is her lack of glossing over gruesome details – her medical background lends itself perfectly to the deconstruction of royal deaths and medically interesting historical figures. They are rarely beautifully sad, respectful moments. Kings get fistulas too. Queens get left in chapels for decades. It happens.
Dr Edge has a hauntingly beautiful, calming-yet-authoritative voice, causing me to spend hours listening to her videos, as she told story after story of European monarchs, aristocrats, and disastrous maladies and morose burial mistakes.
One of her TikTok’s was a response to a comment “you should read audiobooks – you’ve got a great voice for it”, or something to that effect.
At this, Dr Edge kindly let her newer followers know; that she actually has several books – even audiobooks.
Well, I think we all know what I did next! I downloaded ‘Vital Organs’ last night, and finished the whole thing in about 8 hours.
It was like an anatomy lesson via famous hidtorical figures. French kings with fistulas, English monarchs with gout. Marie Curie being killed by the very radium she beloved. A man’s nose cut off during a duel. Van Gogh’s ear – need I say more?
Well I can say this: I can’t WAIT to read ‘Mortal Monarchs’.
Melissa Holden, Writer 