Welcome to All Souls: Between the Stacks
Exploring the history, ideas, and richly layered characters behind Deborah Harkness’s All Souls novels.
Welcome.
If you found your way here, there’s a good chance you love Deborah Harkness’s All Souls novels as much as I do.
Like many readers, I first stepped into this world through A Discovery of Witches. What begins as the story of a historian and a mysterious manuscript quickly opens into something much larger — a universe shaped by old libraries, forgotten traditions, centuries of history, and characters whose lives stretch across time.
Part of what makes these books so compelling is that the world feels real.
Deborah Harkness is a historian, and the series draws on genuine intellectual traditions - from alchemy and early science to manuscript culture, university life, and the long history of scholarship that shaped places like Oxford. The books are filled with references to real ideas, real places, and real traditions that quietly support the story.
Between the Stacks grew from the joy of exploring those connections.
This newsletter is a place to linger a little longer in the world of All Souls - not just the story itself, but the history, ideas, and characters that make that world feel so vivid.
Here you’ll find four kinds of posts each week.
Behind the Story
These essays explore the history and ideas woven through the All Souls universe.
Sometimes that means looking at the traditions behind the books. Alchemy, early science, manuscript culture, or the academic world Deborah Harkness knows so well. Other times it means exploring the real places, intellectual history, and influences that shape the atmosphere of the series.
These pieces step just outside the story to understand the world that made it possible.
Places and Possessions
Some of the most revealing details in All Souls are not in the plot, but in what surrounds it.
The houses, rooms, objects, and collections carry memory, identity, and history. What is kept, what is passed down, and what is protected often tells us as much as the characters themselves.
These essays look more closely at those details and the quiet ways place and possession shape the story.
The Investigation Series
These articles take a closer look at the mysteries unfolding inside the story itself.
Each investigation begins with a question. About magic, history, creatures, or the hidden rules that shape the All Souls universe. From there, the essays follow clues across the books, connecting moments, patterns, and pieces of lore to see what they might reveal.
These pieces stay within the story, following threads, examining possibilities, and asking what the series may still be preparing us to discover.
Character Journeys
The characters of All Souls are one of the series’ greatest strengths.
Diana, Matthew, Ysabeau, Marcus, Gallowglass, Miriam, and others carry long histories, complicated loyalties, and personal transformations that unfold across the books.
These articles look more closely at those journeys, exploring what shapes them, how their pasts influence their choices, and what their stories reveal about the deeper themes of the series.
If you love the All Souls books and the world behind them, you’re in the right place.
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I’m so glad you found your way here.