With its frontline role during successive invasions by Saxons and Danes, and with links to royalty, the early Church, the foundations of British academia and the victorious RAF of the Second World War, Lincolnshire has taken a front seat on the rollercoaster of English history. With ancient rural traditions and agriculture on one hand and groundbreaking technological innovation on the other, it is a county for all seasons. Lincolnshire has made the world a better place, being the home of some of the country's leading authors, composers, clerics, scientists, politicians and sportspeople. It has also made the world a bloodier place, being a dangerous borderland between feuding Celtic, Saxon and Viking kingdoms, and the site of some of the most lethal bomb raids during the two world wars. This book charts the county's amazing history, with strange-but-true anecdotes and characters from the last 2,000 years, and tales from all the county's major towns, villages, fens, wolds and fields.

Paul Sullivan has been a writer and editor since graduating in English language and literature. He works with websites and blogs to popular books and academic papers, local history and folklore being his specialist areas. He compiled and presented festivals and customs weekly guides for BBC Radio in the 1990s, leading to the acclaimed book Maypoles, Martyrs and Mayhem (Bloomsbury). He has written books in total, including eight for The History Press. He has recently moved back to his native Lincolnshire.