The British Book of Prophecies

Fifteen years before the Great Fire of London, an astrologer printed a picture of a city in flames.

In October 1666, a parliamentary committee summoned William Lilly to explain it. Had he foreseen the disaster-or known of a plot to start it?

The British Book of Prophecies investigates fifty prophecies, premonitions and predictions connected with Britain's history. From Merlin, Mother Shipton and the Brahan Seer to Nostradamus, royal warnings and dreams of catastrophe, Adrian Mereford follows the surviving records to discover what was said, when it was written down and when it was first linked to an event.

A fictional liner lost to an iceberg before the Titanic. An Oxford undergraduate who dreamed winning racehorses. A newspaper bureau that tried to turn premonitions into warnings that could save lives. What does the evidence actually show?

Explore Britain's prophetic legends and remarkable claims of foresight:

• Nostradamus and Britain: verses linked to the execution of Charles I, the Great Plague and the Fire of London-and a modern forecast naming 2022 as the year Elizabeth II would die.
• Merlin, Mother Shipton and the Brahan Seer: famous seers whose stories changed as they passed through generations.
• Royal warnings and family curses: the ravens of the Tower of London, the Lambton Worm and predictions of disaster for families and towns.
• Joanna Southcott's box: sealed prophecies, disputed contents and a controversy that outlived the woman who inspired it.
• Dreams that seemed to come true: winning racehorses, warnings of death and the Scottish tradition of second sight.
• The Titan and the Titanic: the striking parallels between an 1898 novel and the disaster of 1912, alongside the differences often left out.
• The Premonitions Bureau: a British experiment that collected warnings of catastrophe in the hope of preventing it.

Follow the story. Examine the evidence.

Blending British history, folklore and paranormal investigation, each chapter traces the available evidence through manuscripts, letters, early printed books and contemporary reports. It separates the date of a prediction from the date someone first connected it with an event.

Every case ends with THE RECORD and THE VERDICT: a concise assessment of the surviving evidence and how closely the prediction matches what happened.

Some forecasts failed. Some apparent successes were shaped by later retellings. Others reveal practical foresight or striking coincidences that deserve a closer look. Across fifty self-contained cases, this book explores the enduring fascination of precognition, omens and the promise of knowing what comes next.

Read the prediction. Check the date. Decide for yourself.