Search results for ""author victoria"
MACK At Home in London: The Mansion Block
Housing is the basic building block of any city, dictating its character, scale, and structure. London is often associated with terraced houses and garden squares, but is also significantly characterised by large, purpose-built blocks of flats, otherwise known as mansion blocks. This landmark survey commissioned by The Architecture Foundation looks at the evolution of the London mansion block from the 1850s to the present day, offering a detailed encounter with the type and its role in defining the contemporary city. Covering twenty-seven examples, richly illustrated by newly com-missioned drawings and photographs, this volume reflects on the architectural ambitions and lived realities of these quotidian buildings. Architectural and urban designer Karin Templin con-siders the ways in which the mansion block came to define large areas of the city from Westminster and South Kensington in the nineteenth century to Kilburn and Stratford in the twenty-first. Reflecting London's development from its consolidation as a metropolis in the high Victorian era to its present efforts to address a longstanding housing crisis, this volume explores the mansion block's centrality to the capital's identity and its wider relevance to discussions of housing and urban planning. This book is first in a series on types of London housing, reflecting on the place of the home in the city in the light of its longstanding housing crisis. Photographs by Matthew Blunderfield Co-published with The Architecture Foundation
£50.00
Vertebrate Publishing Ltd Sheffield Round Walk: A 24km/15mile scenic city walk through parks and woodland
Sheffield Round Walk is a 15-mile circular walk covering the beautiful south-west corner of the city. It reveals the stunning and varied landscapes of this part of the city, you’ll see ancient woodlands, river valleys, pretty Victorian suburbs and parkland, and you’ll glimpse the moorland above the city. Written by Sheffield local Jon Barton, the text is peppered with interesting detail about Sheffield’s industrial past, geology and the varied and surprising wildlife that can be seen on this walk. The walk starts and finishes at Hunter’s Bar Roundabout, where you can visit the lovely independent shops and cafes along Ecclesall Road and Sharrow Vale Road. From here the route goes through Endcliffe Park following the Porter Brook to Ringinglow. Next, pick up the Limb Brook, following it down to Ecclesall Woods and then on to Beauchief. Onwards through Graves Park, Meersbrook Park and passing the River Sheaf before climbing up through Nether Edge and Chelsea Park and back to the start. The walk is split into four linear sections, which vary in character from peaceful and rural to lively and urban. Each section includes plenty of ideas for places to visit on the route as well as details of local cafes and pubs.Together with stunning photography, this book features Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 maps, easy-to-follow directions, refreshment stops and places to visit on and near the route.
£8.99
ACC Art Books Christopher Dresser Textiles
Dr Christopher Dresser is best remembered for his pioneering advances in design and associated technology. In the new industrial world of the nineteenth century, Dresser was the first designer to understand that machinery was a good servant but a poor master; he made it his business to understand how machines worked. His success gained him credibility. Dresser became a sought-after consultant to several textile manufacturers, most notably Barlow & Jones, Tootal, Warner & Sons, Turnbull & Stockdale, and Wardle, which allowed him to establish the largest design practice in Britain by 1870. Equally, it was his success in promoting textiles at affordable prices that attracted his popular following in the press. Unlike his contemporaries, he was interested in making designs available to everyone. However, Dresser is less celebrated in comparison to other designers of the era, such as William Morris, because Dresser was obliged to abandon this campaign to improve British taste due to an unexplained illness in the early 1880s. At the same time, Morris was expanding his business just as the Arts and Crafts movement was beginning to gain momentum. Despite being the first Victorian to address the decorative needs of all the population, there is a severe lack of appreciation for Dresser's work - whose influence can be found in many textiles that we take for granted today. This book redresses that balance, giving Dresser the monograph he deserves.
£27.00
Images Publishing Group Pty Ltd Sir Edwin Lutyens: The Arts & Crafts Houses
Sir Edwin Lutyens is widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest architects. In a career of over 50 years, spanning the Victorian, Edwardian and modern eras of architecture, Lutyens was prolific. His work ranged from great country houses, city commercial office buildings, his famous World War I memorials across Europe and Britain, and his magnum opus designs for New Delhi built during the 1920s and 1930s. Despite such diversity of building types across his long career, Lutyens's most celebrated works remain his country houses, which first established his reputation during the 1890s. As Lutyens's practice flourished his work became widely promoted in publications such as Country Life magazine, and his houses, particularly those designed in the vernacular manner, would subsequently give rise to an entire genre of the English country house that became known, as it is to this day, as a 'Lutyens-style' house. Sir Edwin Lutyens: The Arts and Crafts Houses brings together in new, wide-format, full-colour photography a definitive collection of 45 of Lutyens's great Arts and Crafts houses, in which he ingeniously blended the style of the Arts and Crafts movement with his own inventive interpretation of the Classical language of architecture. The book features 575 all-new current photographs of the houses, inside and outside, together with a selection of floor plans of the houses, and a fresh interpretation of Lutyens's enduring architectural genius.
£58.50
Batsford Ltd Pool: A dip into outdoor swimming pools: the history, design and people behind them
A celebration of outdoor swimming – looking at the history, design and social aspect of pools. The 1930s architecture of the pools is often sleek and elegant, evoking speed and efficiency. And the pools themselves are great social levellers – a public space where everyone is stripped down to a bathing suit. The book begins with a history of the pools – their grand beginnings after the buttoned-up Victorian era, their falling popularity in the 20th century, and the newfound appreciation for the outdoor pool, or lido, and outdoor swimming in the 21st century. Journalist and architectural historian Christopher Beanland picks the very best of the outdoor pools around the world, including the Icebergs Pool on Bondi Beach, Australia; the 137m seawater pool in Vancouver, Canada; Siza's concrete sea pools in Porto, Portugal; the restored art deco pool in Saltdean, UK, and the pool at the Zollverein Coal Mines in Essen, Germany. The book will also feature the lost lidos and the fascinating history behind the architecture of the pools, and essays on swimming pools in art, and the importance of pools in Australia. In addition there are interviews with pool users around the globe about why it is they swim. The book is illustrated throughout with beautiful colour photography, as well as archive photography and advertising and a map with the pool locations.
£24.72
Pan Macmillan Warriors in Scarlet: The Life and Times of the Last Redcoats
Ian Knight's Warriors in Scarlet is a comprehensive and stirring history of the Victorian army between 1837 to 1860, from the Battle of Bossendon Wood to the Crimean War, a period of seismic change.An acclaimed military historian, Knight draws on first-hand accounts to show us the reality of life for the British soldier in this era – the drudgery of peace-time service, the excitement and privations of posting overseas, the floggings and desertions, the regimental pride and comradeship. The rapid expansion of the empire saw the army fighting in small wars across the world and Knight reveals the brutal reality of this colonial conflict from both sides. British soldiers trained in tactics that had beaten Napoleon were forced to adapt when faced with warriors with very different skills fighting on their home ground.Knight vividly recreates the action, from bloody skirmishes in Southern Africa and siege warfare in New Zealand to disasters like the 1842 retreat from Kabul and Chillianwalla in the Punjab – but shows that in reality the army won more than four-fifths of the battles they fought in this era. He describes how, by 1860 with their redcoats increasingly replaced by khaki, the British army was a more professional, efficient and increasingly ruthless fighting force.'Impressively researched and highly readable analysis' – Tony Pollard, Professor of Conflict History and Archaeology, University of Glasgow
£27.00
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837: A Guide for Family Historians
The trail that an ancestor leaves through the Victorian period and the twentieth century is relatively easy to follow - the records are plentiful, accessible and commonly used. But how do you go back further, into the centuries before the central registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced in 1837, before the first detailed census records of 1841? How can you trace a family line back through the early modern period and perhaps into the Middle Ages? Jonathan Oates's clearly written new handbook gives you all the background knowledge you need in order to go into this engrossing area of family history research. He starts by describing the administrative, religious and social structures in the medieval and early modern period and shows how these relate to the family historian. Then in a sequence of accessible chapters he describes the variety of sources the researcher can turn to. Church and parish records, the records of the professions and the courts, manorial and property records, tax records, early censuses, lists of loyalty, militia lists, charity records - all these can be consulted. He even includes a short guide to the best methods of reading medieval and early modern script. Jonathan Oates's handbook is an essential introduction for anyone who is keen to take their family history research back into the more distant past.
£12.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Everyday Fashion in Found Photographs: American Women of the Late 19th Century
In the last half of the 19th century, the women of America were beginning to develop their own sense of style. Although influenced by European fashions and the social and economic changes of the time, they made clothing choices based upon their personal aspirations and their practical everyday needs. Providing an overview of fashion influences for each decade from the 1860s to the end of the century, Everyday Fashion in Found Photographs presents iconic garments, using sources from the period, to provide commentary and detailed description of the styles of the time. Previously unpublished vintage photographs show women across the social spectrum wearing items such as the Garibaldi shirt, the cuirass bodice, the Mother Hubbard, bicycle bloomers, and much more. Names, dates and functions of garments are examined in detail, and ties are established between social and historical contexts and the evolution of clothing styles. This illustrated book is for readers who want to identify and understand specific clothing items as well as gain insight into the mind-set of fashionable women from Victorian-era America. Dress history scholars, costume designers, curators of costume collections, social and cultural historians and those who appreciate vintage photographs can learn about elements of late 19th century women’s dress and thereby develop an understanding of what was fashionable, and why.
£28.99
Vintage Publishing Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone – 125 Years of Pop Music
Ambitious and groundbreaking, Electric Shock tells the story of popular music, from the birth of recording in the 1890s to the digital age, from the first pop superstars of the twentieth century to the omnipresence of music in our lives, in hit singles, ringtones and on Spotify. Over that time, popular music has transformed the world in which we live. Its rhythms have influenced how we walk down the street, how we face ourselves in the mirror, and how we handle the outside world in our daily conversations and encounters. It has influenced our morals and social mores; it has transformed our attitudes towards race and gender, religion and politics. From the beginning of recording, when a musical performance could be preserved for the first time, to the digital age, when all of recorded music is only a mouse-click away; from the straitlaced ballads of the Victorian era and the ‘coon songs’ that shocked America in the early twentieth century to gangsta rap, death metal and the multiple strands of modern dance music: Peter Doggett takes us on a rollercoaster ride through the history of music. Within a narrative full of anecdotes and characters, Electric Shock mixes musical critique with wider social and cultural history and shows how revolutionary changes in technology have turned popular music into the lifeblood of the modern world.
£14.99
Penguin Books Ltd Chosen: Lost and Found between Christianity and Judaism
'Absorbing, fascinating, arresting' The Observer 'Intensely moving, luminous and rather magnificent' The TimesIt was one of the most startling moments in the history of the City of London. In 2011, the Occupy movement set up camp around St Paul's Cathedral. Giles Fraser, who was Canon Chancellor of the Cathedral, gave them his support. It ended in disaster.This remarkable book is the story of the personal crisis that followed, and its surprising consequences. Finding himself caught between the protesters, the church and the City of London, Fraser resigned, and was plunged into depression. As his life fell apart and he battled with ideas of suicide, he found himself by chance one day in Liverpool, outside the great Victorian synagogue once presided over by a distant ancestor. Suddenly Fraser realized that there was a great deal he did not know about himself, about his relatives and about his Jewish roots.Fraser calls this book 'a ghost story' and it is a book which is indeed filled with many ghosts. His search into his family's Jewish past makes this both a fascinating personal story and a wonderful piece of writing about theology. It is a book about the deepest, most ancient elements in our culture, and the most modern and intimate. It is throughout alive with the charm and intellectual vigour which have made Fraser such an admired and controversial preacher and broadcaster.
£10.99
Flame Tree Publishing One Thousand and One Arabian Nights: Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad and the Tales of Scheherazade
Tales of the enchanting ‘Thousand and One Nights’ have entered the folklore of the entire world but their origins lie in the Arabic and Indian oral traditions of the early middle ages. Their power to entice lies in the tenacity of the storyteller Scheherazade who weaves a new tale each night, to save herself from execution. Popular characters such as Aladdin, Ali Baba and Sinbad the sailor have become part of the Arabian Nights, added in later years, but told within the intriguing structure of the original. Such additions by were made by translators and collaborators from many European and Eastern sources but it was Richard Burton’s edition that brought these popular folk tales to the attention of a Victorian era readership eager to explore new cultures. It is Burton’s edition that forms the basis of this new collection, with stories that survive still from the original featured here too: ‘The Merchant and the Genie’, ‘The Fisherman and the Genie’, ‘The Porter and the Three Ladies’, ‘The Three Apples’.
£18.00
Yale University Press Generations of Reason: A Family’s Search for Meaning in Post-Newtonian England
An intimate, accessible history of British intellectual development across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through the story of one family This book recounts the story of three Cambridge-educated Englishmen and the women with whom they chose to share their commitment to reason in all parts of their lives. The reason this family embraced was an essentially human power with the potential to generate true insight into all aspects of the world. In exploring the ways reason permeated three generations of English experience, this book casts new light on key developments in English cultural and political history, from the religious conformism of the eighteenth century through the Napoleonic era into the Industrial Revolution and prosperity of the Victorian age. At the same time, it restores the rich world of the essentially meditative, rational sciences of theology, astronomy, mathematics, and logic to their proper place in the English intellectual landscape. Following the development of their views over the course of an eventful one hundred years of English history illuminates the fine structure of ways reason still operates in our world.
£37.24
The University of Chicago Press Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science
The scientific discovery that chaotic systems embody deep structures of order is one of such wide-ranging implications that it has attracted attention across a spectrum of disciplines, including the humanities. In this volume, fourteen theorists explore the significance for literary and cultural studies of the new paradigm of chaotics, forging connections between contemporary literature and the science of chaos. They examine how changing ideas of order and disorder enable new readings of scientific and literary texts, from Newton's Principia to Ruskin's autobiography, from Victorian serial fiction to Borges's short stories. N. Katherine Hayles traces shifts in meaning that chaos has undergone within the Western tradition, suggesting that the science of chaos articulates categories that cannot be assimilated into the traditional dichotomy of order and disorder. She and her contributors take the relation between order and disorder as a theme and develop its implications for understanding texts, metaphors, metafiction, audience response, and the process of interpretation itself. Their innovative and diverse work opens the interdisciplinary field of chaotics to literary inquiry.
£28.78
Penguin Books Ltd The Yellow Wall-Paper
'The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.'Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for 'nerves' and forbidden to write, Gilman's pioneering feminist horror story scandalized nineteenth-century readers with its portrayal of a woman who loses her mind because she has literally nothing to do.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). Gilman's work is available in Penguin Classics in The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland and Selected Writings.
£5.28
University of Wales Press Ben Bowen
When Ben Bowen died, aged twenty-five, in 1903, the Welsh literary establishment predicted his immortality. This book looks at the Bowen phenomenon as a product both of his own view of himself as a great poet and a Wales that fed that assumption. It traces his escape from a miner's life in the Rhondda, his stay in South Africa during the Boer War, his talent for controversy and his growing awareness of his early death. This is the first extended, dispassionate account of the life, work and death of the Treorci-born poet Ben Bowen (1878-1903). Published on the centenary of his death, the work seeks to explain Bowen's short-lived fame and subsequent obscurity. It considers his precocious sense of himself as a poet, the literary, social and religious milieu in which he operated, his desire to use poetry as an escape from humble beginnings, and his awareness from his late teens of his impending death. Through a consideration of the life of this compelling character, Robin Chapman also enhances our understanding of Welsh culture in late-Victorian and early-Edwardian Wales.
£7.01
Thames & Hudson Ltd Mudlark'd: Hidden Histories from the River Thames
‘Beautiful and poignant' The Art Newspaper ‘Absorbing... a magnificent book' Mail on Sunday The first illustrated book on mudlarking that tells the captivating stories of forgotten people through objects recovered from the river Thames. Combining insights from 200 eclectic objects discovered on the Thames foreshore, meticulous historical research and contextual illustrations, Mudlark’d uncovers the hidden histories of forgotten people from all over the world. Beginning in each case with a particular find, Malcolm Russell tells the stories of the people who owned, made or used such objects, revealing the habits, customs and crafts not only of those living in London but also of those passing through, from continental Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia. In the 18th and 19th centuries London was the busiest port in the world, exchanging goods, ideas, people and power with every continent. The Thames long acted as London’s water source, shipyard, thoroughfare and rubbish dump. Its banks have been densely packed with taverns, brothels, markets and workplaces, and scavengers – known as mudlarks - have scoured them since at least the 18th century. Consequently, the Thames today offers a repository of intriguing objects that evoke ways of life long forgotten. A delicate bone hair pin uncovers the story of Roman ornatrices - enslaved hairdressers. A counterfeit coin reveals the heritage of millions of Australians. Glass beads expose the brutal dynamics of the transatlantic slave trade. Clay tobacco pipes uncover the lives of Edwardian women parachutists and Victorian magicians. A scrap of Tudor cloth illuminates the stories of Dutch and French religious refugees. The book also includes a primer, giving step-by-step advice on how to mudlark on tidal rivers and how to identify commonly made finds.
£22.50
Penguin Books Ltd North and South
As relevant now as when it was first published, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South skilfully weaves a compelling love story into a clash between the pursuit of profit and humanitarian ideals. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Patricia Ingham.When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the North of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction. In North and South Gaskell skilfully fused individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale created one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature. In her introduction Patricia Ingham examines Elizabeth Gaskell's treatment of geographical, economic and class differences, and the male and female roles portrayed in the novel. This edition also includes further reading, notes and a useful glossary.Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-65) was born in London, but grew up in the north of England in the village of Knutsford. In 1832 she married the Reverend William Gaskell and had four daughters, and one son who died in infancy. Her first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848, winning the attention of Charles Dickens, and most of her later work was published in his journals, including Cranford (1853), serialised in Dickens's Household Words. She was also a lifelong friend of Charlotte Brontë, whose biography she wrote.If you enjoyed North and South, you might like Jane Austen's Persuasion, also available in Penguin Classics.'[An] admirable story ... full of character and power'Charles Dickens
£8.42
Chicago Review Press Queen of the Mountaineers: The Trailblazing Life of Fanny Bullock Workman
Fanny Bullock Workman was a complicated and restless woman who defied the rigid Victorian morals she found as restrictive as a corset. With her frizzy brown hair tucked under a helmet, Workman was a force on and off the mountain. Instrumental in breaking the British stranglehold on Himalayan mountain climbing, this American woman climbed more peaks than any of her peers and became the first woman to map the far reaches of the Himalayas and the second to address the Royal Geographic Society of London, whose past members included Charles Darwin, Richard Francis Burton, and David Livingstone. Her books—replete with photographs, illustrations, and descriptions of meteorological conditions, glaciology, and the effect of high altitudes on humans—remained useful decades after their publication. Paving the way for a legion of female climbers, Workman's legacy lives on in scholarship prizes at Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, and Bryn Mawr.Author and journalist Cathryn J. Prince brings Fanny Bullock Workman to life, revealing how she navigated the male-dominated world of alpine clubs and adventure societies as nimbly as she navigated the deep crevasses and icy granite walls of the Himalayas. Queen of the Mountaineers is the story of one woman's role in science and exploration, breaking boundaries and charting frontiers for women everywhere.
£25.95
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press The Selected Poetry of Ebenezer Elliott
This is the first modern selection of the poetry of Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849), best known in literary history as the self-styled 'Corn Law Rhymer' because of his savage satirical poems published in the 1830s. This edition, with a full introduction, note on the text, bibliography, and chronology, together with explanatory notes, brings Elliott's work into the public domain for the first time since his death. It will be of interest to students of Victorian literature and history, and indeed to anyone interested in the politics, poetics, aesthetics, and social history of the nineteenth century. Elliott's poetry is of much more than merely historical interest, just as his work is wider in its reach than his concern with the Corn Laws: there is much here that is personal, even elegiac, and much that is celebratory of his beloved Yorkshire countryside, especially around Rotherham, where he was born, and Sheffield, where he spent most of his adult life. His radical views retain their resonance today. This selection includes poems from all the stages of his long career, with lengthy extracts from The Village Patriarch, The Ranter, The Splendid Village, The Corn Law Rhymes, and many of his numerous miscellaneous poems.
£110.86
Amber Books Ltd Ireland
Ireland holds a special place in people’s hearts – even for many who haven’t been there. To some the appeal is its natural beauty, to others it’s the history; to some it’s Ireland’s lasting folk tradition, to others it even seems to be a mystical place. Ireland: The Emerald Isle presents 150 outstanding photographs celebrating the island’s most evocative and beautiful places, whether in nature or man-made, from the miles of near empty beaches to the Mourne Mountains in County Down, from the pretty fishing towns of County Cork to Dublin’s elegant Georgian streets. Featuring images from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the book ranges widely across landscapes and history, from rugged cliffs and rolling hills to mysterious stone circles, magnificent cathedrals and ruined abbeys; and from medieval forts and castles to grand Victorian follies and villages abandoned during the Potato Famine. While some images such as the striking basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway may be familiar, others you may know only from Game of Thrones and the Star Wars films but never realized that they, too, were in Ireland. Presented with captions explaining the story behind each entry, Ireland: The Emerald Isle is a stunning collection of images celebrating the island’s natural beauty, culture and history.
£19.99
Liverpool University Press Haiti in the British Imagination: Imperial Worlds, 1847-1915
In 1804, Haiti declared its independence from France to become the world’s first ‘black’ nation state. Throughout the nineteenth century, Haiti maintained its independence, consolidating and expanding its national and, at times, imperial projects. In doing so, Haiti joined a host of other nation states and empires that were emerging and expanding across the Atlantic World. The largest and, in many ways, most powerful of these empires was that of Britain. Haiti in the British Imagination is the first book to focus on the diplomatic relations and cultural interactions between Haiti and Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. As well as a story of British imperial aggression and Haitian ‘resistance’, it is also one of a more complicated set of relations: of rivalry, cultural exchange and intellectual dialogue. At particular moments in the Victorian period, ideas about Haiti had wide-reaching relevancies for British anxieties over the quality of British imperial administration, over what should be the relations between ‘the British’ and people of African descent, and defining the limits of black sovereignty. Haitians were key in formulating, disseminating and correcting ideas about Haiti. Through acts of dialogue, Britons and Haitians impacted on the worldviews of one another, and with that changed the political and cultural landscapes of the Atlantic World.
£29.99
Penguin Books Ltd More than a Best Friend: The Lesbian Bridgerton you didn’t know you needed
'Gives us all the top tier wit, spice, and swoons.... One to watch!' Evie Dunmore-----Love is more than just a game for two.It’s 1857, and anxious debutante Beth has just one season to snag a wealthy husband, or she and her mother will be out on the street.Gwen, on the other hand, is on her fourth season and counting, with absolutely no intention of finding a husband, possibly ever. She has plenty of security as the only daughter of a rakish earl, from whom she’s inherited her penchant for drinking too much and dancing ‘til dawn.Beth and Gwen are enchanted with each other on sight. And it doesn’t take long for Gwen to hatch her latest scheme: rather than join the husband hunt, they should set up Gwen’s father and Beth’s newly-widowed mother.They had a fling years ago, after all…Can Beth and Gwen find a way to defy convention and be together? And will their parents find love along the way too?A swoon-worthy debut queer Victorian romance in which two debutantes distract themselves from having to seek husbands by setting up their widowed parents, and instead find their perfect match in each other—the lesbian Bridgerton you never knew you needed!
£9.99
The History Press Ltd The Big Ditch: Manchester's Ship Canal
Nowadays most of us think of the Manchester Ship Canal as that bit of water under the Thelwell Viaduct as we sit in one of England's traffic jam black spots but in the days before the M6, the Manchester Ship Canal was an important route from the docks at Salford and industrial Manchester to the world. From banana boats to cattle carriers, from tramp steamers to pleasure steamers, all sorts of ships used this busy thoroughfare.It wasn't always like this - at one time the docks at Birkenhead and Liverpool received the goods that Manchester needed and everything travelled by railway, canal or road to the North's industrial metropolis. In the 1880s, construction on Britain's largest man-made inland waterway and soon sizable ships sailed to Salford. A stunning engineering project in its own right, the 'Big Ditch' also spawned smaller marvels such as the Barton Aqueduct and it remained busy for almost a century. Now little used, it still remains a marvel of Victorian engineering.
£14.99
Oxford University Press Raffles The Amateur Cracksman
Art for art''s sake is a vile catchword, but I confess it appeals to me''Gentleman by day and thief by night, A. J. Raffles lives a double life. Taking ''Art for art''s sake'' as his motto, Raffles supports his debonair lifestyle by performing lucrative, artistic, and ingenious burglaries of the wealthy elite of Victorian London. Dedicated to his brother-in-law Arthur Conan Doyle, Hornung''s first collection of Raffles stories, The Amateur Cracksman (1899), can be seen as an inverted spin-off of the former''s celebrated detective stories. But it is Raffles'' outlaw status that has drawn generations of readers to these swift-paced tales of a charismatic and cool-headed thief and his less worldly partner, Bunny. Hornung had Oscar Wilde in mind as much as Sherlock Holmes when he created Raffles, and the account of their double life offers one of the turn of the century''s most touching accounts of a same-sex couple. Frequently adapted for stage and screen, Hornung''s original stories have
£8.42
Quercus Publishing How We Might Live: At Home with Jane and William Morris
William Morris - poet, designer, campaigner, hero of the Arts & Crafts movement - was a giant of the Victorian age, and his beautiful creations and provocative philosophies are still with us today: but his wife Jane is too often relegated to a footnote, an artist's model given no history or personality of her own. In truth, Jane and William's personal and creative partnership was the central collaboration of both their lives. The homes they made together - the Red House, Kelmscott Manor and their houses in London - were works of art in themselves, and the great labour of their lives was life itself: through their houses and the objects they filled them with, they explored how we all might live a life more focused on beauty and fulfilment.In How We Might Live, Suzanne Fagence Cooper explores the lives and legacies of Jane and William Morris, finally giving Jane's work the attention it deserves and taking us inside two lives of unparalleled creative artistry.
£27.00
Schiffer Publishing Ltd Collectible Match Holders: For Tabletops and Walls
Match Holders for Tabletops and Walls, by Jean and Franklin Hunting, is destined to be a major source of information for the collector as well as the antiques dealer. The Huntings, of Hunting House Antiques, have been in the antiques business for over twenty-five years, and have participated in major antiques shows from coast to coast. They put their years of experience and love for collecting into a much needed book on match holders. From the common kitchen tin match holder to the elaborate Victorian porcelain piece for the parlor, Match Holders for Tabletops and Walls contains 541 photographs with descriptions as well as information on the history of matches and match holders, and tables of information on United States invention and design patents and their time frames. This up-to-date value guide is an invaluable reference for those wishing to insure their collections, for dealers doing appraisals, and for the novice who is just beginning the pleasurable hobby of collecting.
£25.19
Headline Publishing Group Escape from the Gallery: An Entertaining Art-Based Escape Room Puzzle Experience
This is the perfect book for fans of Journal 29, and those who want to re-create an exciting escape-room experience in their own home!You are Adam Parkinson, an intrepid journalist who has recently been employed by the time-travelling Wexell Corporation. Adam is invited to an unusual art gallery, filled with objects and artworks donated by a mysterious figure. It will be up to you to help Adam unravel the mysteries of the Gallery, and you will travel from Ancient Egypt to Victorian England – and beyond – to do it. And, quite possibly, to save the world!Escape from the Gallery is an immersive escape-room experience that provides a visual feast as well as a tricky puzzle adventure. Featuring artworks ranging from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to Mexican masterpieces, you will need to solve visual riddles and discover the hidden secrets that lie within the artworks if you want to figure out what is going on, and why this might be the most important visit to a gallery you have ever made.
£12.99
Cambridge University Press The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Food
This Companion provides an engaging and expansive overview of gustation, gastronomy, agriculture and alimentary activism in literature from the medieval period to the present day, as well as an illuminating introduction to cookbooks as literature. Bringing together sixteen original essays by leading scholars, the collection rethinks literary food from a variety of critical angles, including gender and sexuality, critical race studies, postcolonial studies, eco-criticism and children's literature. Topics covered include mealtime decorum in Chaucer, Milton's culinary metaphors, early American taste, Romantic gastronomy, Victorian eating, African-American women's culinary writing, modernist food experiments, Julia Child and cold war cooking, industrialized food in children's literature, agricultural horror and farmworker activism, queer cookbooks, hunger as protest and postcolonial legacy, and 'dude food' in contemporary food blogs. Featuring a chronology of key publication and historical dates and a comprehensive bibliography of further reading, this Companion is an indispensible guide to an exciting field for students and instructors.
£24.41
Big Finish Productions Ltd Missy Series 1
Michelle Gomez, who last played the Doctor’s best friend and wicked enemy, Missy, in the Doctor Who television series in 2017, returns to her role in some brand new audio adventures from Big Finish Productions made in arrangements with BBC studios. 1.1 Spoonful of Mayhem by Roy Gill. In a spot of bother in Victorian London, Missy is forced to take on governess duties but she has another scheme in mind, and her charges are simply in the way. She’s going to have to teach the children some rather harsh lessons about getting what you want. And there will be tears before bedtime. 1.2 Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated by John Dorney. Missy arrives in Tudor England, throwing the plans of another renegade Time Lord into chaos.King Henry VIII is on the throne, and aliens are stomping through the countryside. Missy just wants to be Queen. And the Monk? Once he knows who else is on the scene, he’ll be glad just to stay alive. 1.3 The Broken Clock by Nev Fountain. Tonight, on Dick Zodiac’s America’s Most Impossible Killers, Detective Joe Lynwood hunts the most impossible killer of his career. There’s a trail of bodies. Impossible bodies. And Joe has one long night to solve the case. Luckily, D.I. Missy Masters from Scotland Yard in England, London, England is here to help. 1.4 The Belly of the Beast by Jonathan Morris. Missy’s scheme nears completion. All she must do is subjugate one little planet and bend the inhabitants to her will. Not too much to ask. But slaves will keep rebelling. It’s almost as if they don’t want to unearth an ancient artefact to fulfil Missy’s plans for universal domination.She’ll have to do something about that. CAST: Michelle Gomez (Missy/Matis), Rufus Hound (The Monk), Oliver Clement (Oliver Davis), Bonnie Kingston (Lucy Davis), Simon Slater (Montague Davis / Moses Walker / Coachman), Dan Starkey (Mr. Cosmo / Park Keeper / Old Man / Sphinx), Beth Chalmers (Djinn / Housemaid), Maggie Service (Catherine Parr), Leighton Pugh (Sir Foxcroft / Gramoryan 1 / Priest), Graham Seed (Gramoryan 2 / Taverner / Squire), Kenneth Jay (Dick Zodiac), Guy Paul (Joe Lynwood), Ryan Forde Iosco (The Actor Playing Joe Lynwood), Daniel Goode (Mark /Roy), Rachel Verkuil (Frankie and The Actress Playing Missy), Abbie Andrew (Aleyna), John Scougall (Cort / Guards), Lucy Goldie (Sath / Mother), Jason Nwoga(Doctor Goodnight), Jamie Laird (Mister Bryce / Father). Other parts played by members of the cast.
£31.50
Chicago Review Press Maiden Flight: A Novel
Maiden Flight is the true-life story of the Wright sister who in 1926 left her world-famous and intensely possessive older brother to marry newspaper editor Harry Haskell, the man she loved, and suffered the unhappy consequences. An international celebrity in her own right, Katharine embodied the worldly, independent, and self-fulfilled New Woman of the early twentieth century. Yet she remained in many ways a Victorian. Torn between duty and love, she agonized for months before making her devastating break with Orville at age fifty-two.Cast in the form of three interwoven first-person memoirs, Maiden Flight is imaginatively reconstructed from personal letters, newspaper reports, and other documents of the period—in particular, Katharine's lively and extraordinarily revealing love letters to Harry. In allowing Katharine to step outside of Wilbur and Orville's shadow, it sheds new light on the central role she played in their private lives, as well as on her often misunderstood contribution to their scientific work. Above all, Maiden Flight celebrates Katharine's abundant store of what she called ""human nature""—her lively and perceptive outlook on life, her great capacity for both love and indignation, and her acute and sometimes crippling self-awareness.
£15.95
Peepal Tree Press Ltd Love the Dark Days
A Guardian biography of the year 2022 Non-Fiction winner of the OCM Bocas Prize for Literature 2023 This frank, fearless and multi-layered debut centres on a privileged but dysfunctional Indian family, with themes of empire, migration, race, and gender. The Victorian India elephant in the room in Ira Mathur's silk-swathed memoir is in chains. By the time calypso replaces the Raj in post-colonial Trinidad, the chains are off three generations of daughters and mothers in a family in their New World exile. But they are still stuck in place and enduring insecurity and threats, seen and unseen. Set in India, England, Trinidad and a weekend in St Lucia, with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, Love the Dark Days follows the story of a girl, Poppet, of mixed middle-class Hindu and Elite Muslim parentage from post- independent India to her family's migration to post-colonial Trinidad. Profoundly raw, unflinching, layered, but not without threads of humour and perceived absurdity, Love the Dark Days reassembles the story of a disintegrating Empire. "Reads like a fictional family saga as it leaps back and forth in time against a backdrop of patriarchal hegemony and a collapsing empire" - Guardian Best Biographies of 2022 "Compelling" The Observer "A gem of a memoir... Monique Roffey is spot on when she calls it a blaze of a book" The Bookseller
£12.99
Liverpool University Press Soldiers as Citizens: Popular Politics and the Nineteenth-Century British Military
Rank and file soldiers were not ‘the scum of the earth’ but included a cross section of working-class men, who retained their former civilian culture. While they often exhibited pride in regiment and nation, soldiers could also demonstrate a growing class consciousness and support for political radicalism. The book will challenge assumptions that the British army was politically neutral, if privately conservative, by uncovering a rich vein of liberal and radical political thinking among some soldiers, officers and political commentators. This ranges from the Whig ‘militia’ tradition, through radical theories on tactics and army reform, to attempted ultra-radical subversion amongst troops, and the involvement of soldiers in riots and risings. Case studies are given of individual 'military radicals', soldiers or ex-soldiers who were reforming and later socialist activists. Popular anti-French feeling of the Napoleonic Wars is examined, alongside examples of rank and file bravery which fostered widespread loyalty and patriotism. This contributed to soldiers being used successfully in strike breaking, and deployed against rioters or Chartist revolts. By the late Victorian period, popular imperialism was an important part of working-class support for Conservatism. The book explores what impact this had on rank and file soldiers, whilst outlining minority support for socialism.
£29.99
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd The Tyne Bridge: Icon of North-East England
The Tyne Bridge, opened in 1928 by King George V, is one of Britain’s most iconic structures, a Grade II* listed building. Linking Newcastle and Gateshead, this symbol of Tyneside and the region is also a monument to the Tyne’s industrial past. Paul Brown’s popular history explores what the bridge means to the people of North-East England, and its deep connection with their heritage. Brown recounts the story of the bridge’s predecessors, from the Roman Pons Aelius–the first crossing over the Tyne–to the Victorian era. He then brings to life the individuals who built the modern bridge: Ralph Freeman, the structural engineer who also designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge; Dorothy Buchanan, the first female member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, who produced drawings and calculations; John Carr, the boatman who bravely rescued workers from the Tyne on dozens of occasions; and the scaffolder Nathaniel Collins, the only man not to survive construction of the arch, who fell from the bridge just weeks before its completion. This richly illustrated book charts the Tyne Bridge’s story right to the present, exploring how it remains a North-Eastern cultural emblem, in a region that has changed almost unrecognisably since its heyday in the late 1920s.
£16.99
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd Memsahibs: British Women in Colonial India
For young Englishwomen stepping off the steamer, the sights and sounds of humid colonial India were like nothing they'd ever experienced. For many, this was the ultimate destination to find a perfect civil servant husband. For still more, however, India offered a chance to fling off the shackles of Victorian social mores. The word 'memsahib' conjures up visions of silly aristocrats, well-staffed bungalows and languorous days at the club. Yet these women had sought out the uncertainties of life in Britain's largest, busiest colony. Memsahibs introduces readers to the likes of Flora Annie Steel, Fanny Parks and Emily Eden, accompanying their husbands on expeditions, travelling solo across dangerous terrain, engaging with political questions, and recording their experiences. Yet the Raj was not all adventure. There was disease, and great risk to young women travelling alone; for colonial wives in far-flung outposts, there was little access to 'society'. Cut off from modernity and the Western world, many women suffered terrible trauma and depression. From the hill-stations to the capital, this is a sweeping, vividly written anthology of colonial women's lives across British India. Their honesty and bravery, in their actions and their writings, shine fresh light on this historical world.
£30.00
Fonthill Media Ltd Defending Leicestershire and Rutland
Leicestershire and Rutland, occupying the area between the Great North Road and Watling Street have seen the movement of armies from Roman times to the Civil War, with the decisive battles of Bosworth and Naseby fought within or close to their borders. The Victorian era saw the development of both the regular and volunteer forces that would later fight in two world wars, while the development of military flight in both defensive and offensive roles was a twentieth-century theme. Leicestershire and Rutland witnessed defence against the Zeppelins in the First World War; jet engines and US airborne forces in the Second World War; and elements of Britain's nuclear deterrent during the Cold War. The eavesdroppers of the 'Y' Service at Beaumanor Hall provided much of the raw material for Bletchley Park's code-breakers during the Second World War. Evidence of this military activity is visible in the landscape: castles of earthwork, stone or brick; barracks and volunteer drill halls; airfields, missile sites and munitions factories; pillboxes, observer corps posts and bunkers. This book places sites into their social, political, historical and military contexts, as well as figures such as William the Conqueror, Richard III, and Oliver Cromwell.
£16.99
Pan Macmillan Palace of Palms: Tropical Dreams and the Making of Kew
'A glorious green adventure story.' Ann Treneman, The Times 'Books of the Year''The most enthralling historical book I’ve read this year.' Claire Tomalin, New Statesman 'Books of the year' Daringly innovative when it opened in 1848, the Palm House in Kew Gardens remains one of the most beautiful glass buildings in the world today. Seemingly weightless, vast and yet light, the Palm House floats free from architectural convention, at once monumental and ethereal. From a distance, the crowns of the palms within are silhouetted in the central dome; close to, banana leaves thrust themselves against the glass. To enter it is to enter a tropical fantasy. The body is assaulted by heat, light and the smell of damp vegetation. In Palace of Palms, Kate Teltscher tells the extraordinary story of its creation and of the Victorians’ obsession with the palms that filled it. It is a story of breathtaking ambition, of scientific discovery and, crucially, of the remarkable men whose vision it was. The Palm House was commissioned by the charismatic first Director of Kew, Sir William Hooker, designed by the audacious Irish engineer, Richard Turner, and managed by Kew’s forthright curator, John Smith, who battled with boilers and floods to ensure the survival of the rare and wondrous plants it housed.
£9.99
Duke University Press How Soon Is Now?: Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time
How Soon Is Now? performs a powerful critique of modernist temporal regimes through its revelatory exploration of queer ways of being in time as well as of the potential queerness of time itself. Carolyn Dinshaw focuses on medieval tales of asynchrony and on engagements with these medieval temporal worlds by amateur readers centuries later. In doing so, she illuminates forms of desirous, embodied being that are out of sync with ordinarily linear measurements of everyday life, that involve multiple temporalities, that precipitate out of time altogether. Dinshaw claims the possibility of a fuller, denser, more crowded now that theorists tell us is extant but that often eludes our temporal grasp.Whether discussing Victorian men of letters who parodied the Book of John Mandeville, a fictionalized fourteenth-century travel narrative, or Hope Emily Allen, modern coeditor of the early-fifteenth-century Book of Margery Kempe, Dinshaw argues that these and other medievalists outside the academy inhabit different temporalities than modern professionals operating according to the clock. How Soon Is Now? clears space for amateurs, hobbyists, and dabblers who approach medieval worlds from positions of affect and attachment, from desires to build other kinds of worlds. Unruly, untimely, they urge us toward a disorderly and asynchronous collective.
£27.99
New York University Press Transnational Women's Activism: The United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859-1920
Following landmark trade agreements between Japan and the United States in the 1850s, Tokyo began importing a unique American commodity: Western social activism. As Japan sought to secure its future as a commercial power and American women pursued avenues of political expression, Protestant church-women and, later, members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) traveled to the Asian coast to promote Christian teachings and women's social activism. Rumi Yasutake reveals in Transnational Women's Activism that the resulting American, Japanese, and first generation Japanese-American women's movements came to affect more than alcohol or even religion. While the WCTU employed the language of evangelism and Victorian family values, its members were tactfully expedient in accommodating their traditional causes to suffrage and other feminist goals, in addition to the various political currents flowing through Japan and the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century. Exploring such issues as gender struggles in the American Protestant church and bourgeois Japanese women's attitudes towards the "pleasure class" of geishas and prostitutes, Yasutake illuminates the motivations and experiences of American missionaries, U.S. WCTU workers, and their Japanese protégés. The diverse machinations of WCTU activism offer a compelling lesson in the complexities of cultural imperialism.
£48.60
Taylor & Francis Ltd Time Present and Time Past: The Art of John Everett Millais
John Everett Millais (1829-1896) is undoubtedly among the most important of Victorian artists. In his day, and our own, he remains also the most controversial. While, during his lifetime, controversy centred around his early Pre-Raphaelite paintings, in particular Christ in the house of his Parents (1850), during the twentieth century the most intense criticism has been directed towards Millais's later works, such as Bubbles (1886), which has been widely condemned as sentimental 'kitsch'. These later paintings have been held up as the epitome of the degradation of art, against which avant-garde and Modernist pioneers struggled. None of the existing literature on Millais addresses the fundamental problem that this double-identity reveals. While there is extensive material on the Pre-Raphaelite movement in general, Millais's own work after the 1850s is rarely discussed in detail, despite the fact that he lived and worked for another 30 years after his abandonment of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Time Present and Time Past: The Art of John Everett Millais presents the first comprehensive account of Millais's artistic career from beginning to end. The book considers the question of 'high' and 'low' cultural status in debates during Millais's own day, and in subsequent critical thinking, situating Millais's art as a whole within this cultural framework.
£135.00
ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon The Biographer and the Subject – A Study on Biographical Distance
A good biography is a well-staged illusion. It creates - on paper - a vivid, rounded, and immediate sense of lived life. In contrast to purely fictional forms, biography writing does not allow total freedom to the biographer in the creative act. Ideally, a biography's backbone is formed by accurate historical facts. But its soul lies elsewhere. Since the concern is life, something more is needed: Nothing dry, cold or dead, but a vibrant impression of life that is left in the air after one turns over the last page. But how does a biographer do it? The way a biographer creates a subject is largely dictated by the historical distance between them. There are three types of distance in biographical writing: First, where the biographer and the subject personally know one another; second, where the biographer is a near contemporary of the subject; and third, where biographer and subject are distinctly separated, in some cases, by hundreds of years. This study explores how some of the most accomplished biographers manage to recreate life" across time and space. She closely examines Samuel Johnson's Life of Mr. Richard Savage, James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians, Michael Holroyd's Lytton Strachey, Park Honan's Jane Austen, and Andrew Motion's Keats.
£26.09
Schiffer Publishing Ltd British Longcase Clocks
"The longcase clock has been a part of the Englishman's home for some 300 years and has gained a place in his heart seldom if every achieved by any other domestic item. An example of its importance in family life is that it, with the bed and the house, was nearly always mentioned specifically in the will." In Derek Roberts's important new book, readers find a wealth of valuable information detailing the British origins, evolution, and wide range of longcase clocks that have been produced since the 16th century. In twenty chapters Mr. Roberts provides a detailed overview of many facets of these beautiful and useful art works, including early square dial, rare, astronomical and equation clocks, walnut breakarch longcase clocks (and those in other woods), and thirty-hour clocks. Other chapters detail various dial and decoration forms, precision timekeeping, important makers, and clocks of the Victorian and Edwardian eras right up to modern times. A glossary of terms and lengthy index of makers are included. In British Longcase Clocks, Mr. Roberts share his wealth of knowledge enthusiastically and presents over 300 black and white and full-color photographs of details and whole clocks. His book will interest clock owners and all who love fine furniture.
£78.29
Granta Publications Ltd The Luminaries
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 'A breathtakingly ambitious mystery ... as beautiful as it is triumphant.' Daily Mail An astonishing, epic story of promise, deceit and desperation in New Zealand's gold rush. 'What brings a fellow down here, you know, to the ends of the earth - what sparks a man?' It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky. The Luminaries is an extraordinary piece of fiction, both a ghost story and a gripping mystery. Set amidst the promise, deceit and desperation of the mid-19th century goldrush, the lives of its rich, complex cast unspool through a labyrinthine, celestial pattern. Fiendishly clever, vividly rendered and made into a major BBC TV series, The Luminaries established Catton as one of the brightest stars in the firmament. 'A book to curl up with and devour, intricately plotted and extravagantly described, a pastiche of the Victorian sensation novel in the same smart yet playful vein as Sarah Waters.' Guardian
£9.99
Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc She Sheds: A Room of Your Own
Create your very own hideaway for relaxing, crafting, reading, or simply to have a private place just for you. She Sheds provides the instruction and inspiration.They’ve got their man caves, and it’s time for you to have a space of your own. She Sheds shows you how to create cozy getaways with inspiration from across the country. You will start by defining the goal and purpose of your space. Will you use it for entertaining? Crafting? Alone time?Then, use the gallery of over 100 photos as inspiration for your decor, paint colors, and landscaping. Construction ideas, as well as ideas for upcycling, and other green resources are at your disposal throughout so you may truly personalize your she shed. Explore: She sheds in a variety of styles…rustic, colonial, Victorian, Spanish, modern, and more She sheds for a variety of purposes, including crafting and art, gardening, meditation, work, socializing, and simple alone time Style tips for decorating and organizing your she shed Builder’s notes with tips on choosing and working with materials Photo-illustrated step-by-step instructions for building a kit shed Get inspired, and get started on your very own tricked-out retreat!
£15.29
Amberley Publishing Salford at Work: People and Industries Through the Years
Though often seen as the smaller twin of Manchester, Salford – its neighbour across the River Irwell – boasts a rich industrial heritage. Cotton and silk spinning and weaving in local mills attracted an influx of families and provided Salford with a strong economy. However, it was the completion of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894 that triggered the town’s development as a major inland port, and Salford expanded rapidly from a small market town into a major industrial metropolis. The population rose from 12,000 in 1812 to 70,244 within thirty years. By the end of the nineteenth century it had increased to 220,000, mostly housed in low-quality and overcrowded Victorian terraces, leading to chronic social deprivation. Salford at Work explores the life of Salford and its people, from pre-industrial beginnings through to the present day. In a fascinating series of contemporary photographs and illustrations, it takes us through the dramatic rise and fall of the textile industry and the town’s role as a major inland port, the trauma of high unemployment between the wars, post-war industrial decline and into the twenty-first century, showing how this ‘Dirty Old Town’ has successfully transformed itself from one of the country’s most deprived areas into a thriving post-industrial city.
£15.99
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Ada Lovelace: The World's First Computer Programmer
The name Ada Lovelace perhaps is not a name that you would automatically link to computer science but she was in fact the first person to create a computer algorithm. Working with the renowned scientist Charles Babbage, Lovelace translated a set of notes on Babbage's new mechanical computer, The Analytical Engine and discovered that in fact it could be programmed to do more than mere mathematical calculations. Lovelace may have been a mathematical genius but as the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron she was also a figure of great scrutiny. Abandoned by her father at just four weeks old, Ada endured a strict childhood in the care of her mother who was adamant that her daughter would not inherit the so-called Byron madness. She ensured Ada was denied all things that were considered exciting and was pushed more towards the logical subjects such as science and mathematics. Did this strict approach work? Or, did Ada Lovelace inherit more than her genius from her father? Ada was many things, a daughter, wife and mother but above all that she was an inspirational woman, one who defied Victorian ideals by entering the field of mathematical studies and by achieving greatness that is still recognised today.
£25.84
Little, Brown Book Group Let Me Take You by the Hand: True Tales from London's Streets
In 1861, the great journalist and social advocate Henry Mayhew published London Labour and the London Poor, an oral history of those living and working on the streets of Victorian London. Nothing on this scale had been attempted before. On the surface, the streets of London in 1861 and in 2019 are entirely different places. But dig just a little and the similarities are striking and, in many cases, shocking. Taking Mayhew's book as inspiration, Jennifer Kavanagh explores the changes and continuities by collecting and mapping stories from today's London. Beggars, street entertainers, stalls selling a variety of food, clothes, second-hand goods, thieves and the sex trade are all still predominant. The rise of the gig economy has brought a multitude of drivers and cyclists, delivering and moving goods, transporting meals and people, all organized through smart phones but using the same streets as Mayhew's informants. The precarity faced by this new workforce would also be familiar to the street-sellers of Mayhew's day. In terms of resources, gone are the workhouses, almshouses, paupers' lunatic asylums. Enter shelters, day centres, hostels, and food banks. Let Me Take You By The Hand is an x-ray of life on the streets today: the stories in their own words of those who work and live in our capital.
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd David Copperfield
Now a major film directed by Armando Iannucci, starring Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi and Ben WhishawDickens's great coming-of-age novel, now in a beautiful clothbound Penguin editionThis is the novel Dickens regarded as his 'favourite child' and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experiences from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters are Rosa Dartle, Dora, Steerforth, and the 'umble Uriah Heep, along with Mr Micawber, a portrait of Dickens's own father which evokes a mixture of love, nostalgia and guilt.Dickens's great Bildungsroman (based, in part, on his own boyhood) is a work filled with life, both comic and tragic.Charles Dickens (1812-70) had his first, astounding success with his first novel The Pickwick Papers and never looked back. In an extraordinarily full life he wrote, campaigned and spoke on a huge range of issues, and was involved in many of the key aspects of Victorian life, by turns cajoling, moving and irritating. He completed fourteen full-length novels and volume after volume of journalism. Of all his many works, he called David Copperfield his 'favourite child'.Jeremy Tambling is Professor of Literature at the University of Manchester.
£22.50
Astra Publishing House The Bartered Brides
The thirteenth novel in the magical alternate history Elemental Masters series continues the reimagined adventures of Sherlock Holmes in a richly-detailed alternate Victorian England.The threat of Moriarty is gone—but so is Sherlock Holmes. Even as they mourn the loss of their colleague, psychic Nan Killian, medium Sarah Lyon-White, and Elemental Masters John and Mary Watson must be vigilant, for members of Moriarty’s network are still at large. And their troubles are far from over: in a matter of weeks, two headless bodies of young brides wash up in major waterways. A couple who fears for their own recently-wedded daughter hires the group to investigate, but with each new body, the mystery only deepens. The more bodies emerge, the more the gang suspects that there is dangerous magic at work, and that Moriarty’s associates are somehow involved. But as they race against the clock to uncover the killer, it will take all their talents, Magic, and Psychic Powers—and perhaps some help from a dearly departed friend—to bring the murderer to justice.
£8.15