Search results for ""Author Victoria"

"Christmas seems to have been always with us. It is that time of year when we expect good cheer and goodwill, a moment's respite from the year's vicissitudes, solace during difficult times," writes James Ballowe in his introduction to Christmas in Illinois. This book is about the holiday as remembered by Illinoisans. Some are widely familiar--John W. Allen, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sandra Cisneros, Mike Royko, Carl Sandburg, Joseph Smith--but most are known only in their close-knit communities that together represent the very best of the Prairie State. We learn here about the customs of Christmas from Chicago to Cairo, Belleville to Danville, before statehood to the present day, through hard times and good. Tales, poems, news reports, memoirs, recipes, and images are arranged in sections on Christmas in Illinois history, living traditions, songs and symbols, Christmas outdoors, eating merrily, and memories. We see how bright an occasion Christmas has been, and sometimes amusing, raucous, or even dark. The collection's highlights include Chicago's Christmas tree ship, Peoria's Santa Parade, Rockford's Julotta service, a Victorian holiday in Bloomington, and Audubon's 1810 Christmas on the Cache River. Nature writers detail holiday bird-watching expeditions along the North Shore and in deepest southern Illinois. A letter from a member of the 130th Illinois Infantry captures Christmas Day 1863, and Jack McReynolds recalls West Frankfort's 1951 Orient Number Two mine disaster that thereafter haunted the holiday for him and many others. The holiday table is not neglected, with traditional recipes for wild game, pickled herring, and all manner of Christmas cookies. A wide array of illustrations includes images of Chicago's grand State Street parade, the Santa Lucia celebration at Bishop Hill, Belleville's Santa Claus House, Millikin University's Vespers tradition, the University of Illinois madrigal singers, Studs Terkel singing songs of good cheer, and the holiday art of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Heat up some cider, put a log on the fire, and curl up with Christmas in Illinois to share the holiday with friends both old and new.

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Published on the occasion of Damien Hirst's exhibition at White Cube in Hong Kong in the spring of 2013. Among many new works illustrated in the publication are pieces from some of Hirst's latest series: the Entomology paintings and the Blade paintings. Hirst began work on the Entomology paintings in 2009. Each piece is made by placing hundreds of varieties of insect and beetle species into household gloss paint, in intricate geometric patterns. The series is reminiscent of Hirst's iconic series of butterfly wing Kaleidoscope pieces, dating from 2001, which were originally inspired by Victorian tea trays. As with the butterfly--one of Hirst's most enduring "universal triggers"--the insects' appeal derives largely from the appearance of life they retain in death. However, whilst the iridescent beauty of the wings in the Kaleidoscope series evoke stained glass windows, and are often assigned spiritual titles, the Entomology paintings are named after phases and characters in Dante Alighieri's tortuous vision of the afterlife, The Divine Comedy. The works also allude to Hirst's longterm interest in the nineteenth-century fascination with natural history and the irony involved in having to kill something in order to look at it. The Blade paintings are amongst the newest series of works in Hirst's practice. Thousands of variously shaped scalpel blades are positioned on a canvas in spectacular, mandala-like patterns. In some of the works, intermittent areas of coloured gloss paint have been layered in between the blades. The Blade paintings reference two of Hirst's seminal earlier series. While their geometric patterns recall the earlier series of butterfly Kaleidoscope paintings, in their use of surgical instruments, Hirst also returns to one of his most recognisable themes: medicine, and its inevitable futility in the face of our mortality. The surgical materials, first used by Hirst in his early 90s instrument cabinets, are described by the artist as "phenomenal objects because they have to have this confidence and this belief. They are the best quality. They are brilliantly designed, for all the right reasons." With the Blade paintings, the instruments eventual inability to arrest decay is highlighted by their relegation to decorative status.

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In the middle of the nineteenth century, most of New Brunswick was pristine wilderness. But by the end of the century the map of eastern Canada would be changed forever by the sport of salmon angling, and by the adventurers, gentlemen, rakes, and royalty, who were drawn together in their lust for the finest of fish. In Lost Land of Moses, Peter Thomas recounts the dramatic changes that occurred between 1840 and 1880, as strenuous wilderness idylls became the Victorian equivalent of adventure tourism. To illustrate his story, he has chosen more than fifty engravings, cartoons, maps, and photographs from archival collections and 19th century books and magazines. Moses Perley was a New Brunswick lawyer with a gift for contagious enthusiasm. Between 1839 and 1841, he published a series of articles in the British magazine Sporting Review describing his canoe trips with Mi'kmaq or Maliseet companions. The articles inspired a generation of young adventurers to visit New Brunswick. Soon, these young British gentlemen were joined by the rich and famous, as steamships brought fishermen right to the rivers, and needs were supplied by professional outfitters. In 1879, the Marquess of Lorne, then Governor General of Canada, and his daring wife, Princess Louise, spent two glorious weeks on the Restigouche, complete with a vice-regal retinue, a houseboat called Great Caesar's Ghost, and carpeted tents. The New Brunswick salmon waters were open for business. Many of the consequences of this influx were dire. Leases were let on the rivers, allowing only wealthy people to fish them. They founded clubs, built expansive camps, and hired wardens to patrol the pools. Most troubling of all, by the 1880s, the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet, at first respected as knowledgeable guides into their own territory, had been reduced to being perceived as mere servants. Moses Perley never foresaw the changes that large numbers of visitors would bring to New Brunswick's teeming salmon rivers. Lost Land of Moses reveals the consequences of his crusade to lure fly fishermen to New Brunswick. For good and ill, the legacy of those forty years is with us today.

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The first comprehensive biography of this undervalued writer, who was considered 'far and away the best living woman poet' in her day.Andrew Motion's Spectator Book of the Year.'One of the many achievements of This Rare Spirit is its rejection of that tired view of the poet as mouse that barely roared in favour of a true sense of a spikily modern woman, bound by various obligations but resilient, headstrong, and poetically inventive . . . Copus's diligent, scholarly, sensitive work should help Mew's pipe play on for years to come.' Declan Ryan, Los Angeles Review of Books'[A] supreme biography . . . It is hard to do justice to the breadth of research Copus has done here, or the compassionate, detailed conjuring of Mew and her milieu . . . An essential book, a classic work of literary biography.' Seán Hewitt, Irish Times'[K]eenly intelligent, fascinating and nuanced biography . . . Save Charlotte Mew! And read this book.' Joanna Kavenna, Literary Review'An exquisitely told account of the life of a half-forgotten London poet whose work was admired by Hardy, Sassoon and Virginia Woolf. Julia Copus does her justice at last.' Claire Tomalin'This Rare Spirit is a classic - the biography of Mew we have all been waiting for.' Fiona BensonThe British poet Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) was regarded as one of the best poets of her age by fellow writers, including Virginia Woolf, Siegfried Sasson, Walter de la Mare and Marianne Moore. She has since been neglected, but her star is beginning to rise again, all the more since her 150th anniversary in 2019. This is the first comprehensive biography, from cradle to grave, and is written by fellow poet Julia Copus, who recently unveiled a blue plaque on Mew's childhood house in Doughty Street and was the editor of the Selected Poetry and Prose (2019).Mew was a curious mix of New Woman and stalwart Victorian. Her poems speak to us strongly today, in these strangely mixed times of exposure and seclusion: they reveal the private agony of an isolated being who was forced to keep secret the tragedies of her personal life while being at the same time propelled by her work into the public arena. Her poetry transfigures that very private suffering into art that has a universal resonance.

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The first full-length study of the reception of Wordsworth's poetry and theory. William Wordsworth, often regarded as the High Priest of British Romantic Poetry, certainly had the longest career of the Romantics, one extending from his days as a schoolboy almost to the end of his life in 1850, from the Lyrical Ballads and descriptive poetry of 1790s to the late poetry of the 1840s. With this long career came a remarkable history of critical reception: from the reviews of his contemporaries in journals and magazines; to the major statements of Matthew Arnold, John Stuart Mill, and others; to the amazing variety of books, essays, and theoretical approaches of the twentieth century. Although there have been a number of studies about the critical receptionof Wordsworth's poetry and critical theory, Professor Mahoney's book is the first full-length study of how critics -- from the earliest reviewers to the major Victorian voices, to the enormous 20th-century response -- have approached the many facets of the great English Romantic's work. Mahoney does not aim primarily at following the course of Wordsworth's life and career, as many admirable and recent biographies have done, but rather follows the course of a critical reputation as it has evolved from the poet's earliest probes to the present day. Thus Wordsworth and the Critics offers an engaging narrative of the reputation of this most prominent of Romantic poets. Professor Mahoney's book offers an engaging narrative of the reputation of a poet. John L. Mahoney is Thomas F. Rattigan Professor of English at Boston College and has written extensively on Wordsworth and English Romanticism.

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Winner of the Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters * A San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book of 2015 * Fiction Finalist for the 2015 Writers’ League of Texas Book Awards * A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2015 * One of the Texas Observer’s “Five Books We Loved in 2015” * One of PRI’s “The World’s Five Books You Should Read in 2016” “Profound and wrenching…A deeply moving chronicle of one family’s collective devastation, full of remarkable wisdom and humor” (The New York Times Book Review) that follows the members of a wealthy Mexican family after their patriarch is kidnapped.On an unremarkable night, José Victoriano Arteaga—the head of a thriving Mexico City family—vanishes on his way home from work. The Arteagas find few answers; the full truth of what happened to Arteaga is lost to the shadows of Mexico’s vast underworld. But soon packages arrive to the family house, offering horrifying clues. Fear, guilt, and the prospect of financial ruin fracture the once-proud family and scatter them across the globe, yet delicate threads still hold them together: in a swimming pool in Palo Alto, Arteaga’s grandson struggles to make sense of the grief that has hobbled his family; in Mexico City, Arteaga’s mistress alternates between rage and heartbreak as she waits, in growing panic, for her lover’s return; in Austin, the Arteagas’ housekeeper tries to piece together a second life in an alienating new land; in Madrid, Arteaga’s son takes his dog through the hot and unforgiving streets, in search of his father’s ghost. A stunningly original exploration of the wages of a hidden war, Barefoot Dogs is a heartfelt elegy to the stolen innocence of every family struck by tragedy. Urgent and vital fiction, “these powerful stories are worthy of rereading in order to fully digest the far-reaching implications of one man’s disappearance…this singular book affords the reader the chance to step inside a world of privilege and loss, and understand how the two are inextricably intertwined” (San Francisco Chronicle).

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Jennifer Montagu is a world-renowned art historian whose name has become synonymous with the study of Italian Baroque sculpture. In honor of Jennifer Montagu’s immeasurable contribution to the field of Italian Baroque sculpture, sixty-two of the foremost scholars of European sculpture have been invited to participate in a symposium in her honor on 6 - 7 September 2013 at the Wallace Collection, London. Thirty of the papers presented there were selected for the publication as a tribute to this generous colleague and friend who has inspired and mentored dozens of younger historians in European art. Dr. Montagu’s academic work began in Political Science at Oxford, but conversations with Ernst Gombrich led her to pursue an advanced degree in art history instead. In 1963, long before the study of Italian bronze statuettes reached the level of interest that it enjoys today, her classic survey, simply titled Bronzes, was met with great enthusiasm, eventually being printed in five languages. Montagu taught at the University of Reading until 1964, when she became an assistant curator of the Photographic Collection at the Warburg Institute. In 1971 she became a full curator of the collection, a position she held until 1991. During these years she published at an indefatigable rate, and following her retirement from that post, her productivity only increased. Montagu was a Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge University, a Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (National Gallery of Art,Washington, D.C.), and a visiting professor at the Collège de France. Montagu’s numerous publications include her monumental study of Alessandro Algardi (Yale University Press, 1985), Roman Baroque Sculpture: the Industry of Art (Yale, 1989) and Gold, Silver and Bronze: Metal Sculpture of the Italian Baroque (Mellon Lectures, CASVA; Yale University Press, 1996). She was appointed LVO (Royal Victorian Order) in 2006 for services to the Royal Collection and CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in 2012 for her contribution to the history of art.

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Major edition revealing key ideas and events in the lives and work of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood and Victorian literary circles: 5,800 letters (including 2,000 previously unpublished letters) to 330 recipients. The best of these letters, flowing rapidly from his pen, radiate charisma and enthusiasm, warmth and care for his friends, and a total engagement with art and literature. BURLINGTON MAGAZINE [Julian Treuherz] 1835-1854: This nine-volume edition will represent the definitive collection of extant Rossetti correspondence, an outstanding primary witness to the range of ideas and opinions that shaped Rossetti's art and poetry. The largest collection ofRossetti's letters ever to be published, it features all known surviving letters, a total of almost 5,800 to over 330 recipients, and includes 2,000 previously unpublished letters by Rossetti and selected letters to him. In addition to this, about 100 drawings taken from within letter texts are also reproduced. In its entirety the collection will give an invaluable and unparalleled insight into Rossetti's character and art, and will form a rich resource for students and scholars studying all aspects of his life and work. The correspondence has been transcribed from collections in sixty-four manuscript repositories, containing Rossetti's letters to his companions in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt and Stephens; friends such as Boyce and Bell Scott; his early patrons, Ellen Heaton and James Leathart; and his publisher friend, Alexander Macmillan. An additional twenty-two printed sources have also been accessed. Index; extensive annotations.WILLIAM E. FREDEMAN (1928-1999) was professor of English at the University of British Columbia from 1956-1991. His many books, articles and reviews on the Pre-Raphaelites and their followersinclude his important Pre-Raphaelitism: A Bibliocritical Study. He died in 1999 with this edition almost completed. An editorial committee chaired by Betty Fredeman has been formed to see it through the press.

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Secrecy and the Media is the first book to examine the development of the D-Notice system, which regulates the UK media's publication of British national security secrets. It is based on official documents, many of which have not previously been available to a general audience, as well as on media sources.From Victorian times, British governments have consistently seen the need, in the public interest, to prevent the media publishing secret information which would endanger national security. The UK media have meanwhile continuously resisted official attempts to impose any form of censorship, arguing that a free press is in the public interest. Both sides have normally seen the pitfalls of attempting to resolve this sometimes acrimonious conflict of interests by litigation, and have together evolved a system of editorial self-regulation, assisted by day-to-day independent expert advice, known colloquially as the D-Notice System. The book traces the development of this system from nineteenth-century colonial campaigns, through two world wars, to modern operations and counter-terrorism in the post-Cold War era, up to the beginning of the Labour government in 1997. Examples are drawn from media, political and official sources (some not yet open), and cover not only defence issues (including Special Forces), but also the activities of the secret intelligence services MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. These cases relate principally to the UK, but also to American and other allies’ interests. The story of how this sometimes controversial institution now operates in the modern world will be essential reading for those in the media and government departments, and for academics and students in the fields of security, defence and intelligence, as well as being an accessible exposé for the general reader.Nicholas Wilkinson served in the Royal Navy 1959-98, and from 1999 to 2004 he ran the independent Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee. He was a Press Complaints Commissioner from 2005 to 2008, and is a Cabinet Office Historian.

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In 1865 the Victorian poet Matthew Arnold rejoiced in the charm of Oxford, 'that sweet City with her dreaming spires'. A century and a half later, That Sweet City offers a visual and poetic tribute to what is still one of the fairest and most enthralling places in the world. Designed in the form of seven walks across and around Oxford, and radiating out into the surrounding countryside, this book evokes the buildings and landscapes, both famous and less well-known, that have witnessed and shaped the city's history. The first sequence of pictures and poems, Seven Sights of Oxford, leads the reader (and walker) from Christ Church Meadow across the High Street to the Radcliffe Camera; thence down Broad Street to St. Giles, the University Parks and Port Meadow. The second, Seven Secret Sights, offers a circular tour of lesser-known landmarks from the Town Hall to Folly Bridge, the Old Railway Bridge and Isis Lock, the re-emergent Radcliffe Campus, Mesopotamia and The Plain. Seven Ages of Oxford, starting with the Saxon Tower of St. Michael's Church in the Cornmarket, and finishing in the University s science area in South Parks Road (via the Castle, Worcester College, Christ Church, the Sheldonian Theatre and the University Museum), provides a short and eclectic history of the city and its ancient University. Other sequences of poems and paintings include Seven Treasures of Oxford (with the Alfred Jewel and the Bodleian Library), Seven Sights around Oxford (with Otmoor, Kelmscott and Blenheim Palace) and Seven Products of Oxford (including marmalade, books and Oxfam). A final walk, Seven Gardens of Oxford, celebrates the diversity of the city s many green spaces. An introduction provides a concise history of Oxford and explains the choice of sights, the structure of the poetry and the inspiration behind the illustrations. Maps make it easy for visitors to follow the walks and find their way around the city. In words and images, That Sweet City evokes a place constantly changing yet timeless in its beauty.

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The arrival of aerial photography came at a particularly significant moment in terms of the visual appearance of England. This selection of photographs makes use of the Aerofilms collection, acquired by English Heritage in 2007 and subsequently digitised and made available on the Britain from Above website. When Aerofilms fliers first went up in the skies in 1919, they captured a country that, with the obvious exception of some large scale structures such as aircraft hangers and munitions factories, had more or less been preserved in aspic in 1914. What we are looking at in many of the earliest photographs in this book is essentially Edwardian England, with towns and villages generally quite compact, with fields reaching almost up to the High Streets in many cases, and little sign of the sprawl that was to engulf them in the 1920s and 30s. The streets of many towns, especially the seaside resorts that provided the aerial photographers with many of their earliest subjects, have an orderly, almost pristine appearance to them, with the Victorian and Edwardian houses undisturbed by any out of place redevelopment. The purpose of this book is to show just how radically that position changed over the ensuing half century. We trace the outward expansion of places brought about by the availability of the car: the new suburbs and ribbon development. We see how new arterial roads came into being to meet the needs of motor transport and how the centre of cities start to be rebuilt to accommodate it. We witness the growth of sprawl around road junctions on the edge of built up areas and the arrival of new types of building there to service both cars and people: the filling station, the roadhouse. We see how the car encouraged more people to go further afield for sport and pleasure: to the seaside, the races or to new forms of attractions such as the amusement park in the country. And we see how public transport changes over the period from trams to buses with the advent of new facilities such as bus stations. The scale of traffic congestion becomes apparent by the late 1930s. In addition, the impact on the landscape of large motor factories and provision for motor sport is made clear.

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This NKJV Large Print Thinline Bible is inviting to pick up and hard to put down. Unique to this edition, the words of Christ are highlighted in a restful blue ink that’s easy to read and colorblind-friendly.The slim design of the NKJV Large Print Thinline Reference Bible means you can bring it along, wherever your day takes you. This large print edition features Thomas Nelson’s NKJV Comfort Print®, designed to provide a smooth reading experience of the accurate and beautiful New King James Version. And with features including extensive cross-references, concordance, and full-color maps, you’ll still have the tools to get more out of God’s Word. Features include: Presentation page to personalize this special gift by recording a memory or a note Words of Christ in blue quickly identify verses spoken by Jesus Double column provides a nice readable flow of the text End-of-page cross-references and translator notes allow you to find related passages quickly and easily Concordance for finding a word’s occurrences throughout the Bible Full-color maps show a visual representation of Israel and other biblical locations for better context Durable Smyth-sewn binding lies flat in your hand or on your desk Two satin ribbon markers for you to easily navigate and keep track of where you are reading Elegant, gilded page-edge design Clear and readable 10-point NKJV Comfort Print About the Maclaren Series: Named for noted Victorian-era preacher Alexander Maclaren, this series of elegant Bibles features regal blue highlights and verse numbers and clear, line-matched text.Trusted by millions of believers around the world, the NKJV remains a bestselling modern “word-for-word” translation. It balances the literary beauty and familiarity of the King James tradition with an extraordinary commitment to preserving the grammar and structure of the underlying biblical languages. And while the translator’s relied on the traditional Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic text used by the translators of the 1611 KJV, the comprehensive translator notes offer important insights about the latest developments in biblical manuscript studies. The result is a Bible translation that is both beautiful and uncompromising—perfect for serious study, devotional use, and reading aloud.

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Describing in detail one of the most inventive periods in the history of English cinema, the volumes in this celebrated series are already established as classics in their field and represent a major contribution to international film studies. Each volume details the highlights of a single cinematic year, including details of production, manufacturers of equipment, dealers and exhibitors. This is augmented by numerous carefully chosen illustrations and a comprehensive filmography of English films, fiction and non-fiction, for the year. Particular attention is also paid to the ways in which the cinema of other countries affected the English industry. Volume 5 documents the emergence of Cecil M. Hepworth as one of England’s major film producers in 1900. The work of England’s two premier pioneers in the field of cinematography, Robert W. Paul and Birt Acres, is also examined. The conflict in South Africa against the Boers and the uprising of the Boxers in China proved popular subjects for new films and fictional representations. Forgotten pioneers of film are rescued from oblivion in this volume through the attention paid to their roles in English cinema. Volume 5 is introduced and edited by Richard Maltby. The long-awaited fifth and final volume in the series is published for the first time by UEP, and edited and introduced by Richard Maltby, Professor of Screen Studies, Flinders University, Australia. Describing in detail one of the most inventive periods in the history of English cinema, this series represents a major contribution to international film studies. Each illustrated volume details a single cinematic year, including details of production, manufacturers of equipment, dealers and exhibitors, as well as a comprehensive filmography of English films, fiction and non-fiction, for the year. The previous volumes are aready established as classics in their field and have recently been re-jacketed and re-issued by University of Exeter Press.The fifth and final volume documents the year 1900, when the conflict in South Africa against the Boers and the Boxer uprising in China proved popular subjects for news films and fictional representations. It includes a full Introduction by Richard Maltby which places Victorian cinema in its cultural, social and historical context

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A dramatic and heartwarming Victorian saga, perfect for fans of Maggie Hope and Anne Bennett.Shropshire, 1875.Hettie Jones has grown up in Ironbridge. She has never known her father and, since her mother's death, has been brought up by the Malone family, who treat her as one of their own. She works as a pit girl at the local coal mine, alongside her childhood playfellow, Evan - although lately, their friendship seems to be blossoming into something more.But when Queenie King takes a fancy to her, Hettie's life is transformed. Trained first as a lady's maid, and then hurtled into a world of luxury and gentility, she finds her new position difficult to reconcile with her past life. And with Queenie's daughter-in-law scheming against her, Hettie's situation becomes dire.Can Hettie really use her new position for good, and will she find a way to bridge the divide between rich and poor?'A compelling blend of real history, rich period detail, and a gritty, authentic story brimming with love, loss, intrigue, hope, and bitter revenge, The Orphan of Ironbridge delivers a dramatic final chapter to this exciting trilogy.' Lancashire Evening Post Praise for The Daughters of Ironbridge: 'A Journey. Compelling. Addictive.' Val Wood'Evocative, dramatic and hugely compelling . . . The Daughters of Ironbridge has all the hallmarks of a classic saga. I loved it' Miranda Dickinson 'Feisty female characters, an atmospheric setting and a spell-binding storyline make this a phenomenal read' Cathy Bramley 'The Daughters of Ironbridge has that compulsive, page-turning quality, irresistible characters the reader gets hugely invested in, and Walton has created a brilliantly alive, vivid and breathing world in Ironbridge' Louisa Treger 'Such great characters who will stay with me for a long time' Beth Miller 'The attention to period detail and beautiful writing drew me right in and kept me reading' Lynne Francis 'Vivid, page-turning drama' Pippa Beecheno 'A powerful sense of place and period, compelling characters and a pacy plot had me racing to the end' Gill Paul 'A story that is vivid, twisting and pacy, with characters that absolutely leap off the page' Iona Grey'Beautiful and poignant. I'll definitely be reading The Secrets of Ironbridge' Tania Crosse

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LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING'Davies's absorbing study serves up just enough sensationalism - and eccentricity - along with its serious inquiry' SUNDAY TIMES'[A] revealing account of the jail's 164-year history' DAILY TELEGRAPH, 5* review'Insightful and thought-provoking and makes for a ripping good read' JEREMY CORBYN'A much-needed and balanced history' OBSERVER'Davies explores how society has dealt with disobedient women - from suffragettes to refugees to women seeking abortions - for decades, and how they've failed to silence those who won't go down without a fight' STYLISTSociety has never known what to do with its rebellious women. Those who defied expectations about feminine behaviour have long been considered dangerous and unnatural, and ever since the Victorian era they have been removed from public view, locked up and often forgotten about. Many of these women ended up at HM Prison Holloway, the self-proclaimed 'terror to evil-doers' which, until its closure in 2016, was western Europe's largest women's prison. First built in 1852 as a House of Correction, Holloway's women have come from all corners of the UK - whether a patriot from Scotland, a suffragette from Huddersfield, or a spy from the Isle of Wight - and from all walks of life - socialites and prostitutes, sporting stars and nightclub queens, refugees and freedom fighters. They were imprisoned for treason and murder, for begging, performing abortions and stealing clothing coupons, for masquerading as men, running brothels and attempting suicide. In Bad Girls, Caitlin Davies tells their stories and shows how women have been treated in our justice system over more than a century, what crimes - real or imagined - they committed, who found them guilty and why. It is a story of victimization and resistance; of oppression and bravery. From the women who escaped the hangman's noose - and those who didn't - to those who escaped Holloway altogether, Bad Girls is a fascinating look at how disobedient and defiant women changed not only the prison service, but the course of history.

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The Art of Darkness is a visually rich sourcebook featuring eclectic artworks that have been inspired and informed by the morbid, melancholic and macabre. Throughout history, artists have been obsessed with darkness – creating works that haunt and horrify, mesmerise and delight and play on our innermost fears. Gentileschi took revenge with paint in Judith Slaying Holofernes while Bosch depicted fearful visions of Hell that still beguile. Victorian Britain became strangely obsessed with the dead and in Norway Munch explored anxiety and fear in one of the most famous paintings in the world (The Scream, 1893). Today, the Chapman Brothers, Damien Hirst and Louise Bourgeois, as well as many lesser known artists working in the margins, are still drawn to all that is macabre. From Dreams & Nightmares to Matters of Mortality, Depravity & Destruction to Gods & Monsters – this book introduces sometimes disturbing and often beautiful artworks that indulge our greatest fears, uniting us as humans from century to century. But, while these themes might scare us – can’t they also be heartening and beautiful? Exploring and examining the artworks with thoughtful and evocative text, S. Elizabeth offers insight into each artist’s influences and inspirations, asking what comfort can be found in facing our demons? Why are we tempted by fear and the grotesque? And what does this tell us about the human mind? Of course, sometimes there is no good that can come from the sensibilities of darkness and the sickly shivers and sensations they evoke. These are uncomfortable feelings, and we must sit for a while with these shadows – from the safety of our armchairs. Artists covered include Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, Francisco de Goya, Leonora Carrington, John Everett Millais, Tracey Emin, Vincent van Gogh, Barbara Hepworth, Paul Cezanne and Salvador Dalí, as well as scores more. With over 200 carefully curated artworks from across the centuries, The Art of Darkness examines all that is dark in a bid to haunt and hearten. This book is part of the Art in the Margins series, following up on The Art of the Occult, which investigates representations of the mystical, esoteric and occult in art from across different times and cultures.

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“At last we reached a circular enclosure among the grass and scanty trees. We rushed in and it was like getting into a tropical greenhouse with the roof off. There were tall trees and long creepers making monkey ropes, large flowers hanging, great cactus trees, aloes and all sorts of beautiful things crowded together, so that one could hardly squeeze through. I should have liked to stop and stare at the vegetation but on we rushed, over walls and to the tower we had heard of, which is close to the outer wall. We did not stay even to walk round the tower but out we rushed again, like people who were taking a stolen look into an enchanted garden and were afraid of being bewitched if we remained… It was quite dark and we had to be guided by shouts to our camp and got home in a state of great wonder and delight and hope of profitable work and full assurance of the great antiquity of the ruins. Theodore was not very well and had to take quinine.” [M.V.A. Bent, 4 June 1891] Thus a few lines from Mabel (Mrs J. Theodore) Bent’s 1891 African travel diary on her arrival at ‘Great Zimbabwe’ (in present-day Zimbabwe), written for her family, serve to evoke the romance and hardships of colonial exploration for a Victorian audience. Of particular importance are Mabel’s previously unpublished notebooks covering the couple’s arduous wagon trek to these famous ruins, in part sponsored by the ambitious Cecil Rhodes. Theodore Bent’s interpretations of these wonderful monuments sparked a controversy (one of several this maverick archaeologist was involved in over his short career) that still divides scholars today. Mabel Bent was probably the first woman to visit there and help document this major site. As tourists in Egypt and explorers in the Sudan, Ethiopia, and Southern Africa, anyone interested in 19th-century travel will want to follow the wagon tracks and horse trails of the Bents across hundreds of miles of untouched African landscape. Contents: Personal diaries, travel accounts and letters relating to the Bents’ travels and explorations in: Egypt (1885); Zimbabwe (1891); Ethiopia (1893); Sudan (1896); Egypt (1898). Includes extended contributions on the archaeological background to ‘Great Zimbabwe’ by Innocent Pikirayi, and ‘The Stone Birds of Great Zimbabwe’ by William J. Dewey. Additional documents, maps, and Mabel Bent’s own photographs contribute to this important insight into the lives of two of the great British travellers of the nineteenth century. The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J. Theodore Bent. Mabel Bent's diaries of 1883-1898, from the archive of the Joint Library of the Hellenic and Roman Societies, London. Published in three volumes: Volume I – Greece and the Levantine Littoral (2006); Volume II: The African Journeys (2012); Vol III – Southern Arabia and Persia (2010). "...Brisch and Archaeopress have done a major service by reproducing these hidden gems and rescuing Mabel Bent from relative obscurity. This collection is a valuable primary source and will be of immense interest to those interested in female travelogues, historical archaeology, or the daily experiences of European women in colonial Africa." (Reviewed in 'Journal of African History', Vol. 55/2, 2014, 296-298)

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Taking us from the beginning of our story to the present day, A Cold Spell examines how ice has shaped our thoughts, actions and societies – and what it means for us that it is rapidly disappearing from our planet 'A warm-hearted tale of the bizarre, something to cuddle up with in the bleak midwinter . . . Astonishing' THE TIMES 'Bracingly original . . . As the earth warms threateningly, there could hardly be a more pertinent time for a story like this’ MICHAEL PALIN 'A book of limitless fascinations' OLIVIA LAING 'Brightly written, nimbly researched and really quite delightful' LITERARY REVIEW Ice has confounded, delighted and fascinated us since the first sparks of art and culture in Europe and it now underpins the modern world. Without ice, we would not feed ourselves or heal our sick as we do, and our towns and cities, countryside and oceans would look very different. Science would not have progressed along the avenues it did and our galleries and libraries would be missing many masterpieces. A Cold Spell uses this vital link to understanding our past to tell a surprising story of obsession, invention and adventure – how we have lived and dreamed, celebrated and traded, innovated, loved and fought over thousands of years. It brings together a sacrificial Incan mummy, Winston Churchill’s secret plans for unusual aircraft carriers, strange bones that shook Victorian beliefs about the world and a macabre journey into the depths of the human body. It is an original and unique way of looking at something that is literally all around us, whose loss confronts us daily in the news, but whose impact on our lives has never been fully explored. [An] extraordinary, complete and utter history of the human experience of the cold stuff' JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL, COUNTRY LIFE ‘A thought-provoking chronicle of humanity . . . Leonard consistently frames ice in surprising and insightful ways, and in doing so lends it a magical quality’ GEOGRAPHICAL

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England during the Middle Ages was at the forefront of European antisemitism. It was in medieval Norwich that the notorious "blood libel" was first introduced when a resident accused the city’s Jewish leaders of abducting and ritually murdering a local boy. England also enforced legislation demanding that Jews wear a badge of infamy, and in 1290, it became the first European nation to expel forcibly all of its Jewish residents. In The Accommodated Jew, Kathy Lavezzo rethinks the complex and contradictory relation between England’s rejection of "the Jew" and the centrality of Jews to classic English literature. Drawing on literary, historical, and cartographic texts, she charts an entangled Jewish imaginative presence in English culture. In a sweeping view that extends from the Anglo-Saxon period to the late seventeenth century, Lavezzo tracks how English writers from Bede to Milton imagine Jews via buildings—tombs, latrines and especially houses—that support fantasies of exile. Epitomizing this trope is the blood libel and its implication that Jews cannot be accommodated in England because of the anti-Christian violence they allegedly perform in their homes. In the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the Jewish house not only serves as a lethal trap but also as the site of an emerging bourgeoisie incompatible with Christian pieties. Lavezzo reveals the central place of "the Jew" in the slow process by which a Christian "nation of shopkeepers" negotiated their relationship to the urban capitalist sensibility they came to embrace and embody. In the book’s epilogue, she advances her inquiry into Victorian England and the relationship between Charles Dickens (whose Fagin is the second most infamous Jew in English literature after Shylock) and the Jewish couple that purchased his London home, Tavistock House, showing how far relations between gentiles and Jews in England had (and had not) evolved.

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Sir Hardy Amies was one of Britain’s foremost fashion designers who led a fascinating double life as a couturier and an intelligence officer during the Second World War. Sir Hardy’s work for the Belgian resistance effort as part of the Special Operations Executive, was so significant that he was awarded l’Ordre de la Couronne, or Order of the Crown, by the Belgian Government in 1948. Not only did Sir Hardy conduct these operations, but he also simultaneously developed his burgeoning fashion business through the British Board of Trade’s drive to promote UK manufacturing throughout the conflict. He was a man who at once epitomised and challenged the reality of being homosexual in an era when society was deeply unaccepting. He was thrust into what was an overtly macho and potentially hostile environment and, against that backdrop, made a valuable and courageous contribution to the war effort. Born into what we would consider a lower middle-class family, he was handsome, cultured and gregarious and effortlessly traversed the post-war world of high society, launching his haute couture house to great acclaim, gaining clients ranging from film stars to royalty. His work for Queen Elizabeth II saw him awarded the CVO in 1977 and this was elevated to the KCVO, Knight Commander of the Victorian Order in 1989. Her Majesty’s warmth of feeling towards Sir Hardy is evident in the many hand-written thank-you letters she sent him over the course of their long working relationship. Sir Hardy, who lived until the age of 93, could have been dismissed as a lightweight character from the frivolous world of fashion. However, despite a not-particularly extensive formal education, he was highly intelligent, extremely well-travelled and spoke three languages, and his story encapsulates the extraordinary cultural and societal turbulence of the twentieth century.

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A comprehensive presentation of the provocative, modernist graphic works of Britain’s creator of Art Nouveau This is the first book to bring together the recorded works of the English artist Aubrey Beardsley. Despite his early death from tuberculosis in 1898, at the age of 25, these amount to nearly 1100 completed works of art (plus many related sketches) as well as more than 100 sketches in his letters and the books he owned, and this book includes over 50 that have never previously been published. In his brief career Beardsley made a defining contribution to Art Nouveau in Britain and abroad. He also influenced the early history of modern art, attracting the attention of the young Picasso, for example. His distinctive and innovatory graphic style, combined with highly provocative, often sexual subject matter, outraged critics and led to a period of intense notoriety. Beardsley's drawings span the grotesque, the delicately beautiful, the subtly erotic, and the frankly bawdy, and challenged the moral norms of Victorian society. They enthralled artists and art lovers the world over and continue to enthral today. Linda Gertner Zatlin's text presents Beardsley's drawings with a full record of their making, provenance, exhibition history and references in the art historical literature. This material record is accompanied by often extensive discussions of their themes, motifs and symbolism, as well as their critical reception. Unprecedented in its scope and thoroughness, this study presents Beardsley's work and explores its meanings more comprehensively than any previous work on him; it is likely to remain definitive. This superbly illustrated two volume catalogue, beautifully presented as a boxed set, is both an essential reference for specialists and an accessible and enchanting delight for Beardsley enthusiasts.Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

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The eighth action-packed Victorian military adventure featuring hero Jack Lark: soldier, leader, imposter. Expect hard fighting, dangerous bandoleros and double-crossing aplenty as Jack arrives in Mexico. A must-read military adventure for fans of Bernard Cornwell and Simon Scarrow. Dusty deserts, showdowns under the blistering sun, bloodthirsty bandoleros, rough whisky and rougher men. Bullets fly, emotions run high and treachery abounds in The Lost Outlaw. This is classic Jack Lark in a classic western...an exceptionally entertaining historical action adventure' In the midst of civil war, America stands divided. Jack Lark has faced both armies first hand, but will no longer fight for a cause that isn't his. 1863, Louisiana. Jack may have left the battlefield behind, but his gun is never far from reach, especially on the long and lonely road to nowhere. Soon, his skill lands him a job, and a new purpose.Navy Colt in hand, Jack embarks on the dangerous task of escorting a valuable wagon train of cotton down through Texas to Mexico. Working for another man, let alone a man like the volatile Brannigan, isn't going to be easy. With the cargo under constant attack, and the Deep South's most infamous outlaws hot on their trail, Jack knows he is living on borrowed time. And, as they cross the border, Jack soon discovers that the usual rules of war don't apply. He will have to fight to survive, and this time the battle might prove one he could lose. Praise for the Jack Lark series:'Brilliant' Bernard Cornwell'Enthralling' The Times 'You feel and experience all the emotions and the blood, sweat and tears that Jack does... I devoured it in one sitting' Parmenion Books

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'The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our life-time.' The words of Sir Edward Grey, looking out from the windows of the Foreign Office at the end of August 1914, are amongst the most famous in European history, and encapsulate the impending end of the nineteenth-century world.The man who spoke them was Britain's longest-ever serving Foreign Secretary (in a single span of office) and one of the great figures of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Statesman of Europe describes the three decades before the First World War through the prism of his biography, which is based almost entirely on archival sources and presents a detailed account of the main domestic and international events, and of the main personalities of the era. In particular, it presents a fresh understanding of the approach to war in the years and months before its outbreak, and Grey's role in the unfolding of events.Yet Grey's life was not all public affairs, momentous as those were. He disliked being in London, much preferring country life at Fallodon, his family estate in Northumberland, and displayed none of the ambition of his contemporaries (or successors). He attended assiduously to his duties as director of the Great North Eastern Railway, one of the transformative enterprises in industry and communications of the period, and wanted to spend as much time as he could fishing. Apart from his memoirs, the only book he wrote was called The Charm of Birds. This hinterland gave quality to his judgements, and made his character attractive to his contemporaries.This important book is the definitive biography of one of the pivotal figures in European diplomacy, and a magnificent portrait of an age.

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On September 30, 1844 in Hammersmith, England, Connecticut-born George Seward ran 100 yards in nine and a quarter seconds, setting a record. This performance helped establish Seward as the most famous athlete in the world, and his feat remained unsurpassed for almost ninety years. However, in 1889, six years after Seward's death and 45 years after the run, his achievement was declared invalid based on a doubtful "eyewitness" account of the race. Though this dubious version may have been fabricated to discredit Seward's record—because no runners of the time could approach it—the damage was done. After his record was invalidated, Seward fell into obscurity and within a few years, he became nearly forgotten. In George Seward: America's First Great Runner, Edward S. Sears seeks to restore Seward's standing among the greats of track and field. In the early 1840s, when Seward was in the prime of his career, there were no amateur sports in America and just a few professional footraces, so Seward engaged in wagers to display his skills. Within a few years, he established himself as a runner to beat, both in the states and across the Atlantic. Sears recreates many of the races Seward undertook, in which he offered starts against the best runners of his day, started on his knees or racing up to ten men separately in an hour. He even ran against horses. While this book concentrates on Seward, it also covers the history of professional sprinting from the early 1800s to the present. Sears illuminates the formative years of track and field, both in America and England, and much about the Victorian era of sports is covered here, including an emphasis on gambling. About more than the triumphs and misfortunes of a great American athlete, this book examines the adoration of sports celebrities and the struggle between amateur and professional athletics. George Seward is a fascinating profile of an American sports original and should be of interest to not only runners but fans of all sports, as well as general

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'To construct a civilization around the nostrum that the public realm is morally, economically and socially inferior to the private realm is to submit to an alien barbarism in which what we hold in common is permanently placed as second best. David Marquand has constructed a masterly and highly readable plea for the idea of the public once again to be celebrated in British life. His re-entry into the national conversation could not be better timed or more important. Let's hope our fellow citizens take arms in the battle he invites us to join.' --Will Hutton, Columnist, Observer Newspaper 'A profound analysis of the decline of the public realm and the growth of unaccountable government in Britain. The summation of a life's work by one of Britain's leading political thinkers.' --John Gray, The London School of Economics The public domain of citizenship, equity and service is crucial for individual fulfilment and social well-being. But it has been under attack for thirty years – first from the market fundamentalists of the New Right, and then from their New Labour imitators. The results are everywhere – resource-starved public services; the marketization of the public sector; the soul-destroying targets and audits that go with it; the denigration of professionalism and the professional ethic; and the erosion of public trust. More damaging still are the hollowing out of citizenship, the manipulative populism that now pervades British government and a slide towards a new version of the 'Old Corruption' that our Victorian ancestors thought they had banished. David Marquand traces the growth of the public domain from Gladstone to Attlee, analyses the forces that began to undermine it in its post-war heyday and exposes the campaign that the Thatcher and Blair governments have waged against it. He ends with a call for a counter-attack, based on a re-statement of the civic ideal in a twenty-first century idiom. This book will appeal to all those who take an interest in current political events as well as those studying politics and social policy.

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On December 18, 1867, the Buffalo and Erie Railroad’s eastbound New York Express derailed as it approached the high truss bridge over Big Sister Creek, just east of the small settlement of Angola, New York, on the shores of Lake Erie. The last two cars of the express train were pitched completely off the tracks and plummeted into the creek bed below. When they struck bottom, one of the wrecked cars was immediately engulfed in flames as the heating stoves in the coach spilled out coals and ignited its wooden timbers. The other car was badly smashed. About fifty people died at the bottom of the gorge or shortly thereafter, and dozens more were injured. Rescuers from the small rural community responded with haste, but there was almost nothing they could do but listen to the cries of the dying—and carry away the dead and injured thrown clear of the fiery wreck. The next day and in the weeks that followed, newspapers across the country carried news of the "Angola Horror," one of the deadliest railway accidents to that point in U.S. history. In a dramatic historical narrative, Charity Vogel tells the gripping, true-to-life story of the wreck and the characters involved in the tragic accident. Her tale weaves together the stories of the people—some unknown; others soon to be famous—caught up in the disaster, the facts of the New York Express’s fateful run, the fiery scenes in the creek ravine, and the subsequent legal, legislative, and journalistic search for answers to the question: what had happened at Angola, and why? The Angola Horror is a classic story of disaster and its aftermath, in which events coincide to produce horrific consequences and people are forced to respond to experiences that test the limits of their endurance. Vogel sets the Angola Horror against a broader context of the developing technology of railroads, the culture of the nation’s print media, the public policy legislation of the post–Civil War era, and, finally, the culture of death and mourning in the Victorian period. The Angola Horror sheds light on the psyche of the American nation. The fatal wreck of an express train nine years later, during a similar bridge crossing in Ashtabula, Ohio, serves as a chilling coda to the story.

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The elegant Bible you'll keep coming back to because it's so easy to read and use.Enjoy the beautiful New King James Version in a traditional Scripture design optimized to help you quickly navigate through the Bible. The 2-column text employs a verse-by-verse—or verse-style—setting, which means that each verse starts on its own line, making them a snap to find. The large print text is easy to read, and the blue headings and verse numbers stand out while providing a restful, thoroughly enjoyable Scripture-reading experience. With over 72,000 cross references and the complete set of NKJV translator notes, this Bible gives you the tools you'll need to dive deeply into God's Word for yourself.Features include: Verse-style Scripture format starts each verse on its own line so it’s easy to navigate the text Premium Bible paper in opaque white creates a high contrast with the black text, improving readability Words of Christ in black for a reading experience that is easy on your eyes throughout Scripture Ultra-flexible sewn binding lays flat in your hand or on your desk End of page cross references allow you to find related passages quickly and easily Wide double-faced satin ribbons help keep track of where you were reading Full color maps show a visual representation of Israel and other biblical locations for better context Clear and readable 10.5-point NKJV Comfort Print Trusted by millions of believers around the world, the NKJV remains a bestselling modern “word-for-word” translation. It balances the literary beauty and familiarity of the King James tradition with an extraordinary commitment to preserving the grammar and structure of the underlying biblical languages. And while the translator’s relied on the traditional Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic text used by the translators of the 1611 KJV, the comprehensive translator notes offer important insights about the latest developments in biblical manuscript studies. The result is a Bible translation that is both beautiful and uncompromising—perfect for serious study, devotional use, and reading aloud.About the Maclaren Series: Named for noted Victorian-era preacher Alexander Maclaren, this series of elegant Bibles features regal blue highlights and verse numbers and clear, line-matched text.

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This is the first catalogue of the collection of early modern ceramics in the Courtauld. The pieces in the collection showcase brilliantly the skill of potters and pottery painters working at the time of Raphael and Titian.Maiolica is one of the most revealing expressions of Renaissance art. Its extraordinary range of colours retain the vividness that they had when they left the potter's kiln. Italian potters absorbed techniques and shapes from the Islamic world and incorporated ornament and subject matter from the arts of ancient Rome. This new approach to pottery making, combined with the invention of printing, woodcut and engraving, resulted in an extraordinary type of painted pottery, praised by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists for 'surpassing the ancient with its brilliance of glaze and variety of painting'.The collection boasts a magnificent group of vessels made during the high Renaissance, the golden age of Italian maiolica. It includes precious and delicate Deruta lustreware with imagery deriving from Perugino and Raphael, as well as vessels painted in a narrative style of pottery painting known as istoriato. Highlights include vessels depicting episodes taken from the first printed Bibles of the Renaissance. Istoriato maiolica flourished particularly in the lands of the Dukes of Urbino, who promoted this craft by sending painted pottery to prestigious patrons across Europe.Emblems and devices painted on the pottery help us understand that they were meant to be used and enjoyed by the elites in Renaissance society, such as the Medici and other great Tuscan families. The catalogue will include two recent gifts to the Courtauld, a rare tile of the famous patroness of the arts Marchioness Isabella D'Este, and a refined dish painted with the story of Diana and Actaeon.All major Renaissance pottery centres are represented in the collection, including Siena, Faenza and Venice, as well as splendid examples of the mysterious pharmacy jars made at the foot of the mountain of Gran Sasso in the town of Castelli d'Abruzzo. These achievements of the art of pottery in the early modern period are completed by fine examples of Ottoman pottery, as well as examples of Valencian lustreware.Sani's introductory essay on the Victorian collector Thomas Gambier Parry will shed new light on the development of this fascinating collection, making links between Gambier Parry's artistic practice and his collecting and revealing new insights into his taste as a collector. Each detailed entry uncovers a wealth of new information on the provenance of the pieces.

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Book of the Year 2023 according to New York Times, New Yorker, Guardian, Economist, Observer, The Spectator, Financial Times, Vogue, The Times, The Oldie, i Paper, The Standard, Washington Post, Independent, Daily ExpressSHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023SHORTLISTED FOR THE WRITERS’ PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024ONE OF SARAH JESSICA PARKER’S BEST BOOKS OF 2023‘A writer at the peak of her powers’ The TelegraphTruth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? Zadie Smith returns with her first historical novel.Kilburn, 1873. The 'Tichborne Trial' has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be - or an imposter.Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about how in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what's true can prove a complicated task.‘It’s difficult to give any idea of how extraordinary this book is. One of the great historical novels, certainly. But has any historical novel ever combined such brilliantly researched and detailed history with such intensely imagined fiction? Or such a range of living, breathing, surprising characters with such an idiosyncratically structured narrative?’ Michael Frayn‘As always it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind, which, as time goes on, is becoming contiguous with London itself. Dickens may be dead, but Smith, thankfully, is alive’ New York Times‘Zadie Smith’s Victorian-set masterpiece holds a mirror up to Britain . . . The Fraud is the genuine article’ Independent‘Smith’s dazzling historical novel combines deft writing and strenuous construction in a tale of literary London and the horrors of slavery’ GuardianInstant Sunday Times bestseller, September 2023

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One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'Jean Rhys's spell-binding novel Wide Sargasso Sea, inspired by Jane Eyre and winner the Royal Society of Literature Award is beautifully repackaged as part of the Penguin Essentials range.'There is no looking glass here and I don't know what I am like now... Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?'If Antoinette Cosway, a spirited Creole heiress, could have foreseen the terrible future that awaited her, she would not have married the young Englishman. Initially drawn to her beauty and sensuality, he becomes increasingly frustrated by his inability to reach into her soul. He forces Antoinette to conform to his rigid Victorian ideals, unaware that in taking away her identity he is destroying a part of himself as well as pushing her towards madness.Set against the lush backdrop of 1830s Jamaica, Jean Rhys's powerful, haunting masterpiece was inspired by her fascination with the first Mrs Rochester, the mad wife in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.'Compelling, painful and exquisite' Guardian'Brilliant. A tale of dislocation and dispossession, which Rhys writes with a kind of romantic cynicism, desperate and pungent' The Times'Rhys turns a menacing cipher into a grieving, plausible young woman, and one whose story says whole worlds about global mixtures, about the misunderstandings between the colonized, the colonizers and the people who can't easily say which they are' TimeJean Rhys was born in Dominica in 1890, the daughter of a Welsh doctor and a white Creole mother, and came to England when she was sixteen. Her first book, a collection of stories called The Left Bank, was published in 1927. This was followed by Quartet (originally Postures, 1928), After Leaving Mr Mackenzie (1930), Voyage in the Dark (1934) and Good Morning, Midnight (1939). None of these books was particularly successful and with the outbreak of war they went out of print. Jean Rhys dropped from sight until nearly twenty years later she was discovered living reclusively in Cornwall. During those years she had accumulated the stories collected in Tigers are Better-Looking. In 1966 she made a sensational reappearance with Wide Sargasso Sea, which won the Royal Society of Literature Award and the W. H. Smith Award. Her final collection of stories, Sleep It Off Lady, appeared in 1976 and Smile Please, her unfinished autobiography, was published posthumously in 1979. Jean Rhys died in 1979.

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'Roderick Floud's ground-breaking study of the history, money, places and personalities involved in British gardens over the past 350 years gives fascinating insight into why gardening is part of this country's soul.' Michael Heseltine, Deputy Prime Minister (1996-1997)'Thousands of books have been written about the history of British gardens but Roderick Floud, one of Britain's most distinguished economic historians, asks new and important questions: how much did gardens cost to build and maintain, and where did the money come from? Superbly researched, it is full of information which will surprise both economists and gardeners. The book is fun as well as edifying: Floud shows us gardens grand and humble, and introduces us gardeners, plantsmen and technologies in wonderful varieties.' Jane Humphries, Centennial Professor, London School of EconomicsAt least since the seventeenth century, most of the English population have been unable to stop making, improving and dreaming of gardens. Yet in all the thousands of books about them, this is the first to address seriously the question of how much gardens and gardening have cost, and to work out the place of gardens in the economic, as well as the horticultural, life of the nation. It is a new kind of gardening history.Beginning with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Roderick Floud describes the role of the monarchy and central and local government in creating gardens, as well as that of the (generally aristocratic or plutocratic) builders of the great gardens of Stuart, Georgian and Victorian England. He considers the designers of these gardens as both artists and businessmen - often earning enormous sums by modern standards, matched by the nurserymen and plant collectors who supplied their plants. He uncovers the lives and rewards of working gardeners, the domestic gardens that came with the growth of suburbs and the impact of gardening on technical developments from man-made lakes to central heating.AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH GARDEN shows the extraordinary commitment of money as well as time that the English have made to gardens and gardening over three and a half centuries. It reveals the connections of our gardens to the re-establishment of the English monarchy, the national debt, transport during the Industrial Revolution, the new industries of steam, glass and iron, and the built environment that is now all around us. It is a fresh perspective on the history of England and will open the eyes of gardeners - and garden visitors - to an unexpected dimension of what they do.

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Book of the Year 2023 according to New York Times, New Yorker, Guardian, Economist, Observer, The Spectator, Financial Times, Vogue, The Times, The Oldie, i Paper, The Standard, Washington Post, Independent, Daily ExpressSHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023SHORTLISTED FOR THE WRITERS’ PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024ONE OF SARAH JESSICA PARKER’S BEST BOOKS OF 2023‘A writer at the peak of her powers’ The TelegraphTruth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? Zadie Smith returns with her first historical novel.Kilburn, 1873. The 'Tichborne Trial' has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be - or an imposter.Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about how in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what's true can prove a complicated task.‘It’s difficult to give any idea of how extraordinary this book is. One of the great historical novels, certainly. But has any historical novel ever combined such brilliantly researched and detailed history with such intensely imagined fiction? Or such a range of living, breathing, surprising characters with such an idiosyncratically structured narrative?’ Michael Frayn‘As always it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind, which, as time goes on, is becoming contiguous with London itself. Dickens may be dead, but Smith, thankfully, is alive’ New York Times‘Zadie Smith’s Victorian-set masterpiece holds a mirror up to Britain . . . The Fraud is the genuine article’ Independent‘Smith’s dazzling historical novel combines deft writing and strenuous construction in a tale of literary London and the horrors of slavery’ GuardianInstant Sunday Times bestseller, September 2023

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On December 18, 1867, the Buffalo and Erie Railroad’s eastbound New York Express derailed as it approached the high truss bridge over Big Sister Creek, just east of the small settlement of Angola, New York, on the shores of Lake Erie. The last two cars of the express train were pitched completely off the tracks and plummeted into the creek bed below. When they struck bottom, one of the wrecked cars was immediately engulfed in flames as the heating stoves in the coach spilled out coals and ignited its wooden timbers. The other car was badly smashed. About fifty people died at the bottom of the gorge or shortly thereafter, and dozens more were injured. Rescuers from the small rural community responded with haste, but there was almost nothing they could do but listen to the cries of the dying—and carry away the dead and injured thrown clear of the fiery wreck. The next day and in the weeks that followed, newspapers across the country carried news of the "Angola Horror," one of the deadliest railway accidents to that point in U.S. history. In a dramatic historical narrative, Charity Vogel tells the gripping, true-to-life story of the wreck and the characters involved in the tragic accident. Her tale weaves together the stories of the people—some unknown; others soon to be famous—caught up in the disaster, the facts of the New York Express’s fateful run, the fiery scenes in the creek ravine, and the subsequent legal, legislative, and journalistic search for answers to the question: what had happened at Angola, and why? The Angola Horror is a classic story of disaster and its aftermath, in which events coincide to produce horrific consequences and people are forced to respond to experiences that test the limits of their endurance. Vogel sets the Angola Horror against a broader context of the developing technology of railroads, the culture of the nation’s print media, the public policy legislation of the post–Civil War era, and, finally, the culture of death and mourning in the Victorian period. The Angola Horror sheds light on the psyche of the American nation. The fatal wreck of an express train nine years later, during a similar bridge crossing in Ashtabula, Ohio, serves as a chilling coda to the story.

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'Erudite, original and surprisingly moving ... This Christmas, as at every Christmas, millions of listeners will have relished the ethereal King's choir ... Day's meticulous history of a special choral sound investigates the creation of a style, and the evolution of a tradition, that now feels as anciently English as the stonework of King's chapel itself' Boyd TonkinThe sound of the choir of King's College, Cambridge - its voices perfectly blended, its emotions restrained, its impact sublime - has become famous all over the world, and for many, the distillation of a particular kind of Englishness. This is especially so at Christmas time, with the broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, whose centenary is celebrated this year. How did this small band of men and boys in a famous fenland town in England come to sing in the extraordinary way they did in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries?It has been widely assumed that the King's style essentially continues an English choral tradition inherited directly from the Middle Ages. In this original and illuminating book, Timothy Day shows that this could hardly be further from the truth. Until the 1930s, the singing at King's was full of high Victorian emotionalism, like that at many other English choral foundations well into the twentieth century.The choir's modern sound was brought about by two intertwined revolutions, one social and one musical. From 1928, singing with the trebles in place of the old lay clerks, the choir was fully made up of choral scholars - college men, reading for a degree. Under two exceptional directors of music - Boris Ord from 1929 and David Willcocks from 1958 - the style was transformed and the choir broadcast and recorded until it became the epitome of English choral singing, setting the benchmark for all other choral foundations either to imitate or to react against. Its style has now been taken over and adapted by classical performers who sing both sacred and secular music in secular settings all over the world with a precision inspired by the King's tradition.I Saw Eternity the Other Night investigates the timbres of voices, the enunciation of words, the use of vibrato. But the singing of all human beings, in whatever style, always reflects in profound and subtle ways their preoccupations and attitudes to life. These are the underlying themes explored by this book.

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Living Opposite to the Hospital of St John: Excavations in Medieval Northampton 2014 presents the results of archaeological investigations undertaken on the site of new county council offices being built between St. John’s street and Angel Street, Northampton in 2014. The location was of interest as it lay directly opposite the former medieval hospital of St. John, which influenced the development of this area of the town. Initially open ground situated outside the Late Saxon burh, the area was extensively quarried for ironstone during the earlier part of the 12th century, and by the mid-12th century, a few dispersed buildings began to appear. Domestic pits and a bread oven were located to the rear of Angel Street along with a carver’s workshop, which, amongst other goods, produced high-quality antler chess pieces. This workshop is currently without known parallel. The timber workshop was refurbished once and then replaced in stone by the mid-13th century. During the late 12th and early part of the 13th centuries, brewing and baking were undertaken in the two plots adjacent to the workshop. A stone building with a cobbled floor lay towards the centre of the St. John’s street frontage, and behind the building were four wells, a clay-lined tank for water drawn from the well, and several ovens, including at least two bread ovens and three malting ovens. This activity ceased at around the time that the carver’s workshop was replaced in stone, and much of the frontage was cleared. Subsequently, although there was still one building standing on St. John’s street in the early 15th century, the former cleared ground was gradually incorporated back into the plots, perhaps as gardens adjoining the surviving late medieval tenement. The stone tenement was extended and refurbished in the late 15th century and was occupied until c. 1600. Another building was established on Fetter Street after c. 1450 but had disappeared by c. 1550. However, this is the first archaeological indication for the existence of Fetter Street, and further demarcation occurred in this period with a rear boundary ditch being established along the back of the Angel Street plot, separating the land to the south. In the 17th–18th centuries, the area was covered by the dark loamy soils of gardens and orchards until the construction of stables and terraced buildings on the site, which would stand into the Victorian period and beyond.

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A history of post-Disruption Scottish Presbyterian dissent and its religious, political, and social influence Emphasises the role of the underexplored United Presbyterian Church in influencing Scottish religious identity in the mid-nineteenth century, thus moving post-Disruption historiography beyond simple comparisons between the Established and Free churches and opening up possibilities for further research into Scottish dissent Argues that the changing relationships within Scottish dissent between 1843 and 1863 had a lasting and fundamental impact on Scottish religion for much of the next century, culminating in the formation of the United Free Church in 1900 and the 1929 reunion of the Church of Scotland Discusses the important role Scotland's dissenters played in the major ecclesiastical, political, and social issues of the mid-nineteenth century, such as the debates over the church-state relationship, electoral politics, anti-popery controversies, education reform, and poor law reform Based on extensive archival research, including church minutes and financial records, newspapers, and private correspondence between the leading religious and political figures of the period such as Thomas Chalmers The Disruption of the Church of Scotland was one of the most important events in Victorian Britain and had a profound and lasting impact on Scottish religion, politics and society. This book provides the first detailed account of the two major non-established Presbyterian denominations in the two decades after 1843, which together accounted for roughly half of Scotland's churchgoers: the Free Church, formed by those who left the Established Church at the Disruption, and the United Presbyterian Church, a consolidation of the various secessions of the previous century. It explores how the relationship between these churches developed from the bitter feuds over the church-state connection prior to the Disruption to co-operation in the major ecclesiastical, political, and social matters of the day, paving the way to negotiations for merger commencing in 1863. The period between 1843 and 1863 redefined conceptions of what it meant to be Presbyterian and Scottish. By examining a key transitional period in Scottish history, this monograph charts how definitions of Presbyterianism, the Kirk, and dissent evolved as Scotland's national religion slowly moved from the divisions of the previous century towards eventual reunion in 1929.

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The elegant Bible you'll keep coming back to because it's so easy to read and use.Enjoy the beautiful New King James Version in a traditional Scripture design optimized to help you quickly navigate through the Bible. The 2-column text employs a verse-by-verse—or verse-style—setting, which means that each verse starts on its own line, making them a snap to find. The large print text is easy to read, and the blue headings and verse numbers stand out while providing a restful, thoroughly enjoyable Scripture-reading experience. With over 72,000 cross references and the complete set of NKJV translator notes, this Bible gives you the tools you'll need to dive deeply into God's Word for yourself.Features include: Verse-style Scripture format starts each verse on its own line so it’s easy to navigate the text Premium Bible paper in opaque white creates a high contrast with the black text, improving readability Words of Christ in black for a reading experience that is easy on your eyes throughout Scripture Ultra-flexible sewn binding lays flat in your hand or on your desk End of page cross references allow you to find related passages quickly and easily Wide double-faced satin ribbons help keep track of where you were reading Full color maps show a visual representation of Israel and other biblical locations for better context Clear and readable 10.5-point NKJV Comfort Print Trusted by millions of believers around the world, the NKJV remains a bestselling modern “word-for-word” translation. It balances the literary beauty and familiarity of the King James tradition with an extraordinary commitment to preserving the grammar and structure of the underlying biblical languages. And while the translator’s relied on the traditional Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic text used by the translators of the 1611 KJV, the comprehensive translator notes offer important insights about the latest developments in biblical manuscript studies. The result is a Bible translation that is both beautiful and uncompromising—perfect for serious study, devotional use, and reading aloud.About the Maclaren Series: Named for noted Victorian-era preacher Alexander Maclaren, this series of elegant Bibles features regal blue highlights and verse numbers and clear, line-matched text.

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'Clever, twisty, and altogether spine-chilling. . . . [A] deliciously terrifying story. . . .You'll want to read this one after dark, ideally with the wind whistling in the eaves and a window banging somewhere just out of reach. But keep the light switch handy. You just might need it' Ruth Ware, Book of the MonthWhat was it like? Living in that house.Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into a rambling Victorian estate called Baneberry Hall. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a memoir called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon.Now, Maggie has inherited Baneberry Hall after her father's death. She was too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father's book. But she doesn't believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don't exist.But when she returns to Baneberry Hall to prepare it for sale, her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the pages of her father's book lurk in the shadows, and locals aren't thrilled that their small town has been made infamous. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself - a place that hints of dark deeds and unexplained happenings. As the days pass, Maggie begins to believe that what her father wrote was more fact than fiction. That, either way, someone - or something - doesn't want her here. And that she might be in danger all over again . . . THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROne of . . .Huff Post's "10 Of The Most Anticipated Book Releases Of June 2020" - Good Housekeeping's "The 35 Best Books of 2020 to Add to Your Reading List" - Travel + Leisure's "20 Most Anticipated Summer 2020 Books" - PopSugar's 17 Most Anticipated Summer Thrillers - Working Mother's "The 20 Most Anticipated Books of 2020" - Newsweek's 20 most anticipated summer reads - Publishers Weekly's "Summer Reads 2020" - BookPage's "2020 Most Anticipated Thrillers and Mysteries" - Today.com's "16 highly anticipated summer reads" - The Star Tribune's "Great Escapes" summer reads - BookPage's "Private Eye July" - USA Today's"Summer reading guide: 20 new books you won't want to miss" - CrimeReads "10 New Books Coming Out This Week" - Buzzfeed "17 New Thrillers That Will Keep Your Summer Exciting" - The Everygirl "30 Books That Should Be on Your Summer Reading List."

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At the dawn of the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt and J. Pierpont Morgan were the two most powerful men in America, perhaps the world. As the nation’s preeminent financier, Morgan presided over an elemental shift in American business, away from family-owned companies and toward modern corporations of unparalleled size and influence. As president, Theodore Roosevelt expanded the power of that office to an unprecedented degree, seeking to rein in those corporations and to rebalance their interests with those of workers, consumers, and society at large. Overpowering figures and titanic personalities, Roosevelt and Morgan could easily have become sworn enemies. And when they have been considered together (never before at book length), they have generally been portrayed as battling colossi, the great trust builder versus the original trustbuster. But their long association was far more complex than that, and even mutually beneficial. Despite their many differences in temperament and philosophy, Roosevelt and Morgan had much in common—social class, an unstinting Victorian moralism, a drive for power, a need for order, and a genuine (though not purely altruistic) concern for the welfare of the nation. Working this common ground, the premier progressive and the quintessential capitalist were able to accomplish what neither could have achieved alone—including, more than once, averting national disaster. In the process they also changed forever the way that government and business worked together. An Unlikely Trust is the story of the uneasy but fruitful collaboration between Theodore Roosevelt and Pierpont Morgan. It is also the story of how government and business evolved from a relationship of laissez-faire to the active regulation that we know today. And it is an account of how, despite all that has changed in America over the past century, so much remains the same, including the growing divide between rich and poor; the tangled bonds uniting politicians and business leaders; and the pervasive feeling that government is working for the special interests rather than for the people. Not least of all, it is the story of how citizens with vastly disparate outlooks and interests managed to come together for the good of their common country.

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Victorian London had Jack the Ripper.Georgian Dublin had the Dolocher…The Dolocher is stalking the alleyways of Dublin. Half man, half pig, this terrifying creature has unleashed panic on the streets. Can it really be the evil spirit of a murderer who has cheated the hangman's noose by taking his own life in his prison cell, depriving the mob of their rightful revenge? Or is there some other strange supernatural explanation?This terror has come at the perfect time for down-at-heel writer Solomon Fish. With his new broadsheet reporting ever more gruesome stories of the mysterious Dolocher, sales are growing daily and fuelling the city's fear. But when the Dolocher starts killing and Solomon himself is set upon, he realises that there's more to the story than he could ever have imagined.With the help of his fearless landlady, ship's surgeon-turned-apothecary Merriment O'Grady, Solomon goes after the Dolocher. Torn between reason and superstition, they must hold their nerve as everyone around them loses theirs. But are they hunting the Dolocher or is the Dolocher hunting them?PRAISE FOR THE DOLOCHER"It's perfectly suspenseful, grisly in all the right places, and has characters with personalities that leap from the page. It's a seriously epic read, in every magnificent sense."LITTLE BOOKNESS LANE"This book had me hooked from page 1 and I loved every heart stopping second of it."DRINKING BOOKS"It's a wonderful, colourful tale that I think all will adore. It's almost like a fairy tale – but this is definitely one for grown-ups!"CRIMEWORM"This is a fabulous historical tale of crime along with fantasy and I loved it!"BOONS BOOKCASE"This must be one of the dirtiest books in terms of setting I've read in a long while. I even sniffed the book after reading to see if the pages were imbued with some sort of potion from Merriment's shop to make it even more authentic than it was."THE BOOKTRAILER"A great historical mystery... reason battles with superstition and fear, till it boils over."BOOK MOOD REVIEWS"A beautifully written work of historical fiction with some truly wonderful characters"THE WELSH LIBRARIAN

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Discover art that dared to be different, risked reputations and put careers in jeopardy. This is what happens when artists take tradition and rip it up. ArtQuake tells the stories of 50 pivotal works that shook the world, telling the fascinating stories behind their creation, reception and legacy. The books begin with the rebels who struck out against Victorian conformism, daring painters and sculptors like Manet and Rodin, Van Gogh and Courbet, who experimented with expressionist and realist art styles as well as controversial subjects. Moving into the fin de siècle and the 20th century, we study the truly iconic works and turbulent lives of artists like Munch and Klimt, Picasso and Egon Schiele, whose work into abstraction, surrealism and cubism shocked and scandalized, but ultimately changed the course of western art forever. Moving into the second half of the 20th Century, we see spectacular works of conceptual rebellion, absurdity and political protest, from Andy Warhol and the Pop Art movement to Marina Abramovic, whose often visceral and violent works of performance art laid bare the savagery of the patriarchy and the human condition. In the 21st century, we see how iconoclastic creators have pushed the boundaries of art even further, from Banksy to Louise Bourgeoise, from self-destructing paintings to experimental works of computerized art. Complete with beautiful reproductions of their iconic works, as well as a glossary of terms and movements at the back, meet the huge egos, uncompromising feminists, gifted recluses, spiritualists, anti-consumerists, activists and satirists who have irrevocably carved their names into the history of art around the world. In telling the history of modern and contemporary art through the works that were truly disruptive, and explaining the context in which each was created, ArtQuake demonstrates the heart of modern art, which is to constantly question and challenge expectation. This book is from the Culture Quake series, which looks into iconic moments of culture which truly created paradigm shifts in their respective fields. Also available is FilmQuake, which tells the stories of 50 key films that consciously questioned the boundaries, challenged the status quo and made shockwaves we are still feeling today.

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The first comprehensive biography of this undervalued writer, who was considered 'far and away the best living woman poet' in her day.Andrew Motion's Spectator Book of the Year.'One of the many achievements of This Rare Spirit is its rejection of that tired view of the poet as mouse that barely roared in favour of a true sense of a spikily modern woman, bound by various obligations but resilient, headstrong, and poetically inventive . . . Copus's diligent, scholarly, sensitive work should help Mew's pipe play on for years to come.' Declan Ryan, Los Angeles Review of Books'[A] supreme biography . . . It is hard to do justice to the breadth of research Copus has done here, or the compassionate, detailed conjuring of Mew and her milieu . . . An essential book, a classic work of literary biography.' Seán Hewitt, Irish Times'[K]eenly intelligent, fascinating and nuanced biography . . . Save Charlotte Mew! And read this book.' Joanna Kavenna, Literary Review'An exquisitely told account of the life of a half-forgotten London poet whose work was admired by Hardy, Sassoon and Virginia Woolf. Julia Copus does her justice at last.' Claire Tomalin'This Rare Spirit is a classic - the biography of Mew we have all been waiting for.' Fiona BensonThe British poet Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) was regarded as one of the best poets of her age by fellow writers, including Virginia Woolf, Siegfried Sasson, Walter de la Mare and Marianne Moore. She has since been neglected, but her star is beginning to rise again, all the more since her 150th anniversary in 2019. This is the first comprehensive biography, from cradle to grave, and is written by fellow poet Julia Copus, who recently unveiled a blue plaque on Mew's childhood house in Doughty Street and was the editor of the Selected Poetry and Prose (2019).Mew was a curious mix of New Woman and stalwart Victorian. Her poems speak to us strongly today, in these strangely mixed times of exposure and seclusion: they reveal the private agony of an isolated being who was forced to keep secret the tragedies of her personal life while being at the same time propelled by her work into the public arena. Her poetry transfigures that very private suffering into art that has a universal resonance.

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Ken Wilson’s Classic Rock is one of the most popular and iconic works of climbing literature ever written. Along with Hard Rock and Extreme Rock, it has acquired legendary status. First published in 1978, Classic Rock represented the absolute best of British climbing at that time, quickly establishing itself as a must-have publication. It is a celebration of 80 of the best lower-grade routes in Great Britain, bringing them to life through a superb selection of photographs, anecdotes and essays from some of the most accomplished climbers of the day. ‘Ticking’ the book became an instant and obvious challenge, and remains so to this day (Wilson wasn’t a fan, describing it as ‘puerile ticking’). Any climber working his or her way through the book will be taken on a tour of the finest routes on the best cliffs and crags to be found throughout England, Scotland and Wales. Many of the routes in the book were established over a century ago. At that time the Victorian and Edwardian alpinists, flushed with successes abroad, sought harder challenges at home. With their well-honed confidence, they went straight for the biggest cliffs of Scotland. Anyone seeking to retrace their steps will immediately be transported to bold lines of weakness up otherwise daunting precipices! Before long these pioneers trailed their hemp ropes and balanced their hobnail boots up the sea cliffs of Cornwall and the gritstone edges of the Pennines, and the crags of the Lake District and North Wales. These climbers provided us with a great national treasure – a repository of adventure and spectacle that can provide a lifetime’s enjoyment and challenge. An ascent of a great historic route will rarely disappoint. Such routes retain much of their original challenge, unsullied by the pitons and bolts often found on their continental equivalents. They take bold, logical lines up otherwise difficult cliffs – usually cleaned and stabilised by years of use. Classic Rock provides a mere sampling of these treasures. This latest edition has been transformed with over 300 new colour photos. These sit alongside archive images to create an inspirational dialogue between today’s climbers and those of history. Fifty-five chapters, contributed by acclaimed climbers and writers such as Jim Perrin, Paul Nunn and Angela Soper, describe the finest classic rock climbs in Britain.

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The volume relates the history of four parishes in Gore hundred and of the five which form Edmonton hundred. The first group contains Hendon, Kingsbury, and Little Stanmore, all bordering Edgware Road, and Great Stanmore. A northward projection of Ossulstone hundred separates it from the second, consisting of Edmonton, Enfield, and Tottenham, along the Essex boundary following the river Lea, and of South Mimms, finally transferred to Hertfordshire in 1965,and Monken Hadley, transferred in 1889 but now part of Greater London. In size the parishes range from Monken Hadley, with 695 a., to Enfield, among the largest in England with more than 12,000 a.; the most populous, Totten-ham with Wood Green, had well over 200,000 inhabitants by 1931. The story is of the rise of roadside settle-ment, of the purchase of land by Lon-doners, of suburban growth around railway stations and along new avenues, and, most recently, of rebuilding. Today's residents include a large Jewish community at Golders Green and coloured immigrants in working-class Tottenham and Edmonton. The scene is mainly suburban, although varying from the villas of late Victorian and Edwardian Southgate to ferry-built terraces farther east, and from Hampstead Garden Suburb to municipal housing estates and tower blocks. Many houses in Enfield, Mill Hill, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, and Stanmore are leftfrom the genteel villages of 18th- and early- 19th-century Middlesex. Park-land and farms survive in the north, notably in South Mimms, where Wrotham and Dyrham parks stand in their grounds, and around the former royal forest ofEnfield Chase. Canons, the area's most famous mansion, is recalled by the remnants of its park, close to the church where the princely duke of Chandos lies buried. Industry is confined mainly to the Lea valley, where the Royal Small Arms factory produced the first Enfield rifle in the 1850s, and to sites near Edgware Road, where Hendon Aerodrome lay. Other landmarks include the Alexandra Palace, whence the earliest television service was relayed, HarringayStadium and Arena, and the White Hart Lane ground of Tottenham Hotspurs football club.

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Discover the uses and symbolic meanings of flowers over the centuries and across the globe.Flowers have been depicted as objects of beauty and wonder in countless paintings and poems, exchanged as tokens of love and affection, and displayed as symbols of both celebration and remembrance - "saying it with flowers" is truly part of the human experience. But how does the significance of flowers vary across cultures and at different points in history? And what makes certain flowers special?The Secret Language of Flowers explores the meaning of more than 85 flowers, tracing their history as symbols and charting their role in folklore and mythology around the world. This fascinating book on flowers can help you to:-Unlock the meaning of flowers throughout history - from early peoples to the 19th-century.- Discover the Victorian language of flowers popular in the US, UK, and Europe.- Gain an insight into folklore and mythology in relation to different flowers.- Uncover what flowers mean in various cultures around the world. -Uncover traditional medicinal uses of plants, such as aloe, which is used to treat burns.Uncover the rich and fascinating histories of individual flowers - the sunflower, for example, which was regarded by the Aztecs as a symbol of war, but became a symbol of devotion in 19th-century painting due to the fact that it "turns its head" to follow the sun. Learn about the function of flowers in society, from the practical to the playful - flowers have been used as remedies and tonics - tea tree and coneflower (or echinacea), for example - as well as as a means of sending cryptic messages to lovers and friends.The Secret Language of Flowers is an entertaining guide to the rich stories that lie beyond the seductive aromas and dazzling beauty of flowers of all kinds. Each flower featured throughout the book is arranged by season, from the first snowdrops and primroses of spring, the glorious roses of summer, the stunning fuchsias and dahlias of autumn to the holly and poinsettia of the winter months, there's a flower for everyone to fall in love with. At DK, we believe in the power of discovery. So why stop there? If you like The Secret Language of Flowers, then why not try Great Loves which celebrates some of the most famous romances in history, or Lost Masterpieces to discover extraordinary stories behind the world's missing works of art.

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When Amanda Held Opelt suffered a season of loss-including three miscarriages and the unexpected death of her sister, New York Times bestselling writer Rachel Held Evans-she was confronted with sorrow she didn't know to how face. Opelt struggled to process her grief and accept the reality of the pain in the world. She also wrestled with some unexpectedly difficult questions: What does it mean to truly grieve and to grieve well? Why is it so hard to move on? Why didn't my faith prepare me for this kind of pain? And what am I supposed to do now?Her search for answers led her to discover that generations past embraced rituals that served as vessels for pain and aided in the process of grieving and healing. Today, many of these traditions have been lost as religious practice declines, cultures amalgamate, death is sanitized, and pain is averted. In this raw and authentic memoir of bereavement, Opelt explores the history of human grief practices and how previous generations have journeyed through periods of suffering. She explores grief rituals and customs from various cultures, including:- the Irish tradition of keening, or wailing in grief, which teaches her that healing can only begin when we dive headfirst into our grief- the Victorian tradition of post-mortem photographs and how we struggle to recall a loved one as they were- the Jewish tradition of sitting shiva, which reminds her to rest in the strength of her community even when God feels absent- the tradition of mourning clothing, which set the bereaved apart in society for a time, allowing them space to honour their griefAs Opelt explores each bereavement practice, it gives her a framework for processing her own pain. She shares how, in spite of her doubt and anger, God met her in the midst of sorrow and grieved along with her, and shows that when we carefully and honestly attend to our losses, we are able to expand our capacity for love, faith, and healing.

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The volume describes thirteen hundred years in the life of the city of Gloucester from the late 7th century A.D. to the mid 1980s. William the Conqueror's order for the Domesday survey at his Christmas council at Gloucester in 1085, the spectacu-lar architectural achievements of the monks and their masons at St. Peter's abbey in the 14th century, and the city's resistance to the siege which turned the course of the Civil War in 1643 are events of nationalsignificance familiar to students of English history. Less well known is the complex story of development in which those events are landmarks. The volume describes how the Saxon borough, formed in the shell of Roman colonia at a crossing of the river Severn, became in the early Middle Ages a royal administrative centre, military base, and seat of religious foundations; it exam-ines the variety of economic functions which sustained the city throughout the medieval and early modern periods, with at different times ironworking, clothmaking, the trade on the river, pinmaking, market trade, and banking coming to the fore; and it traces the efforts of the townspeople to gain control of their own affairs and recounts how the system of government which they secured from the Crown in 1483 hardened into oligarchy in the 16th century, fuelled politi-cal dissension in the 17th, and proved surprisingly effective as a force for city improvement in the 18th. It tells how in the 19th century railways and the trade brought by the Gloucester and Berkeley ship canal gave a new direction to the Georgian cathedral city, bringing new industries and rapidgrowth, and how an array of public bodies grappled with the consequent need for better public services, new churches, and schools. The story of Gloucester is continued into the later 20th century when changing patterns of employment and major redevelopment removed many familiar landmarks, leaving the ornate Perpendicular cathedral and the extensive Victorian docks as the most substantial reminders of a rich and varied history. The account of Gloucester'shistory is divided into three parts. The first is a sequence of five chapters, divided chrono-logically. The second deals with particular features and institutions of the city, topic by topic. The third describes topographicallythe outlying hamlets and parishes that have been taken into the modern city.

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A Sunday Times Book of the YearShortlisted for The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize 'This magnificent, highly readable double biography...brings these two driven, complicated women vividly to life' The Financial Times'A gripping saga of a double-biography' Daily Mail'A masterful portrait' The Times'Vastly enjoyable' Literary Review'Deeply absorbing and meticulously researched' The Oldie In 1815, the clever, courted and cherished Annabella Milbanke married the notorious and brilliant Lord Byron. Just one year later, she fled, taking with her their baby daughter, the future Ada Lovelace. Byron himself escaped into exile and died as a revolutionary hero in 1824, aged 36. The one thing he had asked his wife to do was to make sure that their daughter never became a poet. Ada didn't. Brought up by a mother who became one of the most progressive reformers of Victorian England, Byron's little girl was introduced to mathematics as a means of calming her wild spirits. Educated by some of the most learned minds in England, she combined that scholarly discipline with a rebellious heart and a visionary imagination. As a child invalid, Ada dreamed of building a steam-driven flying horse. As an exuberant and boldly unconventional young woman, she amplified her explanations of Charles Babbage's unbuilt calculating engine to predict, as nobody would do for another century, the dawn today of our modern computer age. When Ada died - like her father, she was only 36 - great things seemed still to lie ahead for her as a passionate astronomer. Even while mired in debt from gambling and crippled by cancer, she was frenetically employing Faraday's experiments with light refraction to explore the analysis of distant stars.Drawing on fascinating new material, Seymour reveals the ways in which Byron, long after his death, continued to shape the lives and reputations both of his wife and his daughter. During her life, Lady Byron was praised as a paragon of virtue; within ten years of her death, she was vilified as a disgrace to her sex. Well over a hundred years later, Annabella Milbanke is still perceived as a prudish wife and cruelly controlling mother. But her hidden devotion to Byron and her tender ambitions for his mercurial, brilliant daughter reveal a deeply complex but unsuspectedly sympathetic personality. Miranda Seymour has written a masterful portrait of two remarkable women, revealing how two turbulent lives were often governed and always haunted by the dangerously enchanting, quicksilver spirit of that extraordinary father whom Ada never knew.

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