Search results for ""Author Victoria"
Quarto Publishing PLC Colours of London: A History
Celebrated novelist, biographer and critic Peter Ackroyd paints a vivid picture of one of the world's greatest cities in this brilliant and original work, exploring how the city's many hues have come to shape its history and identity. Think of the colours of London and what do you imagine? The reds of open-top buses and terracotta bricks? The grey smog of Victorian industry, Portland stone and pigeons in Trafalgar square? Or the gradations of yellows, violets and blues that shimmer on the Thames at sunset – reflecting the incandescent light of a city that never truly goes dark? We associate green with royal parks and the District Line; gold with royal carriages, the Golden Lane Estate, and the tops of monuments and cathedrals.Colours of London shows us that colour is everywhere in the city, and each one holds myriad links to its past. The colours of London have inspired artists (Whistler, Van Gogh, Turner, Monet), designers (Harry Beck) and social reformers (Charles Booth). And from the city’s first origins, Ackroyd shows how colour is always to be found at the heart of London’s history, from the blazing reds of the Great Fire of London to the blackouts of the Blitz to the bold colours of royal celebrations and vibrant street life. This beautifully written book examines the city's fascinating relationship with colour, alongside specially commissioned colourised photographs from Dynamichrome, which bring a lost London back to life. London has been the main character in Ackroyd's work ever since his first novel, and he has won countless prizes in both fiction and non-fiction for his truly remarkable body of work. Here, he channels a lifetime of knowledge of the great city, writing with clarity and passion about the hues and shades which have shaped London's journey through history into the present day. A truly invaluable book for lovers of art, history, photography or urban geography, this beautifully illustrated title tells a rich and fascinating story of the history of this great and ever-changing city.
£22.50
Quirk Books Dracula's Heir
In 1897, Archibald Constable and Company published Bram Stoker's "Dracula", the most famous horror novel of all time. For reasons still debated by critics, the first chapter of "Dracula" was cut from the book just weeks before publication. Here, it becomes the central clue in a spine-tingling mystery - published in the same format as Quirk's "The Crimes of Dr Watson". "Dracula's Heir" begins ten years after the horrific events described in the original novel. Jonathon and Mina Harker are happily married and enjoying life in Bixby, England. Meanwhile, their friend Dr. John Seward is tracking a string of crime that seems eerily familiar; a 14-year-old girl sleepwalks out of her parent's house and disappears into the night. Two "accident victims" are found drained of their blood, yet there is no crime scene evidence to explain its loss. When Seward shares his discoveries with the famous vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing, all the evidence points to Jonathon Harker.After all, Harker spent several months imprisoned in Castle Dracula as a guest of the Count - was he infected without anyone else realising it? Has the mild-mannered English solicitor spent the last ten years lurking in the shadows as a nosferatu? Or is someone (or something) else getting away with murder? As with "The Crimes of Dr Watson", "Dracula's Heir" features an original mystery novella plus 8 removable clues, including a newspaper, a journal, a death certificate, a Victorian calling card and more. Once you've solved the mystery, you can open the final signature (sealed at the printer) to test your sleuthing skills.
£23.00
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Charles Dickens: Places and Objects of Interest
Few writers have had a greater impact upon British society than Charles Dickens. His stories, and, in particular, his many memorable characters, highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged within society at a time when Britain was the leading economic and political power in the world. Dickens' portrayal of the poor, such as Oliver Twist daring to ask for more food in the parish workhouse, and Bob Cratchit struggling to provide for his family at Christmas, roused much sympathy and an understanding of the poor and the conditions in which they lived. This led to many people founding orphanages, establishing schools to educate the underprivileged, or to set up hospitals for those who could not afford medical treatment -one such was Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital where one of its wards was named after the great writer. Little wonder, then, that his legacy can be found across the UK. From the buildings where he lived, the inns and hotels he frequented, the streets and towns which formed the backdrop to his novels and short stories, to the places where he gave readings or performed his own amateur dramatic productions to raise funds for his philanthropic causes. Dickensian memorabilia also abound, including his original manuscripts to his famous works and letters to his wife. Many of these have been woven in a single volume which transports the reader magically through stories and images into the Dickensian world of Victorian Britain.
£30.90
Princeton University Press The Match Girl and the Heiress
Nellie Dowell was a match factory girl in Victorian London who spent her early years consigned to orphanages and hospitals. Muriel Lester, the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder, longed to be free of the burden of money and possessions. Together, these unlikely soulmates sought to remake the world according to their own utopian vision of Christ's teachings. The Match Girl and the Heiress paints an unforgettable portrait of their late-nineteenth-century girlhoods of wealth and want, and their daring twentieth-century experiments in ethical living in a world torn apart by war, imperialism, and industrial capitalism. In this captivating book, Seth Koven chronicles how each traveled the globe--Nellie as a spinster proletarian laborer, Muriel as a well-heeled tourist and revered Christian peacemaker, anticolonial activist, and humanitarian. Koven vividly describes how their lives crossed in the slums of East London, where they inaugurated a grassroots revolution that took the Sermon on the Mount as a guide to achieving economic and social justice for the dispossessed. Koven shows how they devoted themselves to Kingsley Hall--Gandhi's London home in 1931 and Britain's first "people's house" founded on the Christian principles of social sharing, pacifism, and reconciliation--and sheds light on the intimacies and inequalities of their loving yet complicated relationship. The Match Girl and the Heiress probes the inner lives of these two extraordinary women against the panoramic backdrop of shop-floor labor politics, global capitalism, counterculture spirituality, and pacifist feminism to expose the wounds of poverty and neglect that Christian love could never heal.
£30.62
Cinnamon Press The Sound of Gematria
It’s the last months of the nineteenth century and twenty-two year old Euphemia Thorniwork, is out of step with the men’s world she lives in. A mathematical research student at Oxford, looked on with suspicion by her her tutor, Professor Milton, she is forced to collaborate with fellow-student, Leo Lazarus, also under suspicion—for being Jewish. At home in London, life is under pressure—for months a toxic fog has engulfed the city each evening, bringing illness to many, including Euphemia’s widowed mother. The fog has been accompanied by a wave of body-snatching and the body of Euphemia’s beloved cousin, Pearl, remains missing. Additionally, money is tight and Euphemia and her mother must move in with relatives who disapprove of her lifestyle. Haunted by dreams of Pearl in which numbers, a red heifer and Biblical purification rites provide insoluble clues, she discovers an article about communicating with the dead using sound waves. Determined to cling to rational explanations, Euphemia returns to Oxford, but when she begins to fall in love with Leo, and learns something of esoteric Judaism, their research takes an unconventional turn and the questions mount. Can Euphemia and Leo find the body snatchers? What is the origin of the toxic fog and can they find a way to defeat it? Will Leo and Euphemia’s love survive their religious divide? Blending Victorian romance and drama with a compelling supernatural story, The Sound of Gematria is an engaging debut novel not to be missed.
£11.99
Boydell & Brewer Ltd "Turbulent Foresters": A Landscape Biography of Ashdown Forest
A richly detailed history of Ashdown Forest -- home of Winnie-the-Pooh. The seeming tranquility of many rural landscapes can hide a combative history. This biography of one such landscape, Ashdown Forest in the Weald of Sussex, exemplifies the evolving conflicts that have taken place over many centuries. Wealth and poverty, power and exclusion, have all characterised this landscape through the ages. When a thirteenth-century boundary was erected to form a hunting park it was imposed upon a landscape which for centuries had provided sustenance for peasant families, for swine herds, for itinerant groups, all of whom had developed grazing and collecting rights and customary ties with the area. Conflict between manorial lords and commoners, "turbulent foresters", was born, and the evolution of this conflict over succeeding centuries is the recurring motif of this book. We move through the exploitation of iron ore and timber during the Tudor period, learn of the real threats of enclosure, of military occupation, to be followed by a landscape aesthetic bringing wealthy incomers, attracted by scenery easily reachable from London by train. All sides felt that the Forest was theirs by right. Victorian law-suits, twentieth-century protective legislation and a growing environmental consciousness have all left their mark. And the struggle for Ashdown continues amid ongoing development pressures. This book demonstrates that multi-layered conflict has been a characteristic feature of what still miraculously remains the largest area of internationally recognised heath in the South-East of England.
£90.00
New York University Press A Taste for Brown Bodies: Gay Modernity and Cosmopolitan Desire
Winner, LGBT Studies Lammy Award presented by Lambda Literary Neither queer theory nor queer activism has fully reckoned with the role of race in the emergence of the modern gay subject. In A Taste for Brown Bodies, Hiram Pérez traces the development of gay modernity and its continued romanticization of the brown body. Focusing in particular on three figures with elusive queer histories—the sailor, the soldier, and the cowboy— Pérez unpacks how each has been memorialized and desired for their heroic masculinity while at the same time functioning as agents for the expansion of the US borders and neocolonial zones of influence. Describing an enduring homonationalism dating to the “birth” of the homosexual in the late 19th century, Pérez considers not only how US imperialist expansion was realized, but also how it was visualized for and through gay men. By means of an analysis of literature, film, and photographs from the 19th to the 21st centuries—including Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Anne Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain,” and photos of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison—Pérez proposes that modern gay male identity, often traced to late Victorian constructions of “invert” and “homosexual,” occupies not the periphery of the nation but rather a cosmopolitan position, instrumental to projects of war, colonialism, and neoliberalism. A Taste for Brown Bodies argues that practices and subjectivities that we understand historically as forms of homosexuality have been regulated and normalized as an extension of the US nation-state, laying bare the tacit, if complex, participation of gay modernity within US imperialism.
£21.99
Cornell University Press Pubs and Progressives: Reinventing the Public House in England, 1896–1960
No self-respecting Victorian lady would enter a British pub, a florid drinking den where working men guzzled pints of beer. When brewers, inspired by the Progressive belief that the physical environment influenced moral behavior, turned to the problem of working-class drinking during the interwar years, they set to work reinventing the pub itself. Acting on a genuine belief in the possibility of social betterment, reformers found ready allies among not only government officials but religious leaders, social workers, journalists, the landed classes, even the royal family. In the process, brewers sought to undermine the stigma against pubic drinking and attract a broader clientele. Their Progressive ideas shaped the emergence of an "improved public house" that blurred distinctions among pubs, on one hand, and up-market hotels, restaurants, and roadhouses, on the other. Outside, cheerful gardens, children's playgrounds, and bowling greens greeted delighted customers. Inside, brewers wooed new patrons with meals, music, dancing, and live entertainment. Tea or entertainment rooms beckoned men, women, and even families; couples found intimacy in the new stylish lounge. In this astonishing story of the transformation of the pub, Gutzke draws on an array of sources and methods from gender studies, cultural history, literature, architecture, and urban planning, without neglecting the crucial role of ideology, economics, and politics. This broad-based study, which includes numerous illustrations, will appeal not just to specialists but to anyone interested in the history of a pivotal English social institution.
£42.30
The History Press Ltd Devizes: History and Guide
Devizes began as the satellite town of a great Norman castle built in the twelfth century by Bishop Roger of Salisbury to defend the boundaries of his church's domain. Roger was Chancellor to Henry I and a powerful man in the land while the king was fighting in France. The castle in Devizes, by all accounts an impressive structure, played an important role in military and political events as Stephen and Matilda vied for the English throne following Henry's death. At the end of the Middle Ages the importance of the castle declined and Devizes became primarily a market town, trading in leather, corn and wool. Surviving merchants' houses from the fifteenth century are evidence of the town's flourishing trade at that time.Just as the existence of many Georgian houses reflect a 'Golden Age' of Devizes in the eighteenth century when wool was the major source of the town's wealth. Today the town preserves many fine buildings including two Norman churches, a medieval street plan and one of the largest and most attractive market places in the country. The medieval castle has gone but a Victorian replacement built by a Devizes businessman picturesquely occupies the castle site. A feature of the book is a guided tour of the town that can be used independently of the main text of the book, enabling the reader to embark straight away on a journey into Devizes' past through its existing streets and buildings. Lorna Haycock lives in Devizes and is currently the Sandell Librarian at Devizes Museum in Long Street.
£20.00
Columbia University Press Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration
From 1934 to 1954 Joseph I. Breen, a media-savvy Victorian Irishman, reigned over the Production Code Administration, the Hollywood office tasked with censoring the American screen. Though little known outside the ranks of the studio system, this former journalist and public relations agent was one of the most powerful men in the motion picture industry. As enforcer of the puritanical Production Code, Breen dictated "final cut" over more movies than anyone in the history of American cinema. His editorial decisions profoundly influenced the images and values projected by Hollywood during the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Cultural historian Thomas Doherty tells the absorbing story of Breen's ascent to power and the widespread effects of his reign. Breen vetted story lines, blue-penciled dialogue, and excised footage (a process that came to be known as "Breening") to fit the demands of his strict moral framework. Empowered by industry insiders and millions of like-minded Catholics who supported his missionary zeal, Breen strove to protect innocent souls from the temptations beckoning from the motion picture screen. There were few elements of cinematic production beyond Breen's reach--he oversaw the editing of A-list feature films, low-budget B movies, short subjects, previews of coming attractions, and even cartoons. Populated by a colorful cast of characters, including Catholic priests, Jewish moguls, visionary auteurs, hardnosed journalists, and bluenose agitators, Doherty's insightful, behind-the-scenes portrait brings a tumultuous era--and an individual both feared and admired--to vivid life.
£79.20
Taylor & Francis Ltd The British Army Regular Mounted Infantry 1880–1913
The regular Mounted Infantry was one of the most important innovations of the late Victorian and Edwardian British Army. Rather than fight on horseback in the traditional manner of cavalry, they used horses primarily to move swiftly about the battlefield, where they would then dismount and fight on foot, thus anticipating the development of mechanised infantry tactics during the twentieth century. Yet despite this apparent foresight, the mounted infantry concept was abandoned by the British Army in 1913, just at the point when it may have made the transition from a colonial to a continental force as part of the British Expeditionary Force. Exploring the historical background to the Mounted Infantry, this book untangles the debates that raged in the army, Parliament and the press between its advocates and the supporters of the established cavalry. With its origins in the extemporised mounted detachments raised during times of crisis from infantry battalions on overseas imperial garrison duties, Dr Winrow reveals how the Mounted Infantry model, unique among European armies, evolved into a formalised and apparently highly successful organisation of non-cavalry mounted troops. He then analyses why the Mounted Infantry concept fell out of favour just eleven years after its apogee during the South African Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. As such the book will be of interest not only to historians of the nineteenth-century British army, but also those tracing the development of modern military doctrine and tactics, to which the Mounted Infantry provided successful - if short lived - inspiration.
£39.99
Taschen GmbH The Big Book of Legs
The female leg is a sexual oddity. Non-genital, and nearly identical in structure to the corresponding male body part, there is no obvious reason why it’s eroticized. Yet, through much of history, across many cultures, the female leg was hidden from sight and treated as such a taboo topic that it became an object of intense sexual obsession. In the Victorian era the word “leg” was so forbidden that it couldn’t be uttered in polite society, lest men be driven wild with lust. Even now, 100 years after women’s legs came out of hiding, their allure remains strong. In this third book of Dian Hanson’s wildly successful body parts series she explores how freeing the female leg became central to women’s liberation, beginning with the post-French Revolution cancan and ending with the 1960’s Sexual Revolution miniskirt. Over 400 photos document the first burlesque “leg shows” of the 1800s, the silk-stockinged flappers of the 1920s, the nylon-mania of the 1940s, the dawn of the stiletto heel in the 1950s, all leading to the golden age of leg magazines in the 1960s. Learn who wore the first high heels, how nylons became a weapon of war, why Betty Grable’s were the million dollar legs, where Elmer Batters got his start, and just what the deal is with feet, while enjoying great vintage photos by Irving Klaw, Batters and other masters of leg art.
£50.00
Pallas Athene Publishers Passionate Attitudes: The English Decadence of the 1890s
The 1890s have become legendary: the period of Wilde, Beardsley and the Yellow Book; a decadent twilight at the close of the Victorian century, when young poets weary of life sat about drinking absinthe and talking of strange sins. The provenance of this beguiling picture is peculiar, for the myth of the Decadent Nineties was created during the period itself. It was an age of artistic self-consciousness, during which writers and painters believed that they had to create not only their works but also their personalities. In Passionate Attitudes, Matthew Sturgis examines the varying extents to which ambitious poets, penurious painters, canny publishers and a controversialist press all conspired to promote the notion of decadence. He explores in detail the cataclysmic effect upon English decadence of the spectacular trial and subsequent conviction of Wilde in 1895, a fall which was to cast a blight over the whole generation. As well as the luminaries Wilde, Beardsley and Beerbohm, Sturgis portrays Arthur Symons, the poet of the music halls, who divided his energies between promoting Verlaine and chasing after chorus girls; Ernest Dowson, the demoralised romantic of the Rhymers Club; Count Erik Stenbock, who kept a snake up his sleeve and went mad; and John Gray, who may have been the model for Wilde's Dorian. John Lane published most of their books; Owen Seaman and Ada Leverson parodied their manners. Elegantly written, Passionate Attitudes provides a hugely informative and richly entertaining account of the zeitgeist behind the glorious decade of excess.
£16.19
Anness Publishing Draw Like an Expert in 15 Easy Lessons: Learn Pencil and Pastel Techniques Through Step-by-step Projects with 600 Photographs
This easy-to-use easel format book is ideal for both complete beginners and more experienced artists who want to expand their skills. It contains clear instructions, reliable advice and friendly encouragement to unleash your creativity. It features over 600 illustrations and photographs lead you step by step through each project. It features carefully planned lessons that teach you how to draw the detailed features of people and pets. It offers easy-to-follow guidance on composition, perspective, medium, and the best sitting position for drawing. In this title, projects include household objects, winter tree, Victorian house, portrait of a girl, and ducks on the pond. From flowers and still lifes to landscape and family portraits - you can learn how to draw in just 15 simple, fun lessons. All you need to get started is some basic equipment and a sketchbook. Then just follow the step-by-step directions to learn time-tested techniques for using pencils, pens, pastels and charcoal, and watch your artwork form before your eyes. A useful introduction contains guidance on types of easel, sitting positions, basic equipment and choosing a sketchbook, as well as simple instructions for basic shapes. The chapters that follow cover Still Life, Flowers and Trees, Landscape, People and Portraits, and Animals. Each project is illustrated with detailed stage-by-stage pictures, including close-ups of difficult sections. The practical easel format makes this book easy to use by any aspiring artist.
£12.99
Quercus Publishing Gandhi: Naked Ambition
The pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India's independence movement, pioneer of non-violent resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience (satyagraha), honoured in India as 'father of nation', Mohandas K. Gandhi has inspired movements for civil rights and political freedom across the world. Jad Adams offers a concise and elegant account of Gandhi's life: from his birth and upbringing in a small princely state in Gujarat during the high noon of the British Raj, to his assassination at the hands of a Hindu extremist in 1948 only months after the birth of the independent India which he himself he had done so much to bring about. He delineates the principal events of a career that may truly be said to have changed the world: his training as a barrister in late Victorian London; his civil rights work in Boer War-era South Africa; his leadership of the Indian National Congress; his focus on obtaining self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, and the campaigns of non-cooperation and non-violence against British rule in India whereby he sought to achieve that aim (including the famous 'Salt March' of March/April 1930); his passionate opposition to partition in 1947 and his fasts-unto-death in a bid to end the bitter and bloody sectarian violence that attended it. Jad Adams's accessible and thoughtful biography not only traces the outline of an extraordinary life with exemplary clarity, but also examines why Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings are still profoundly relevant today.
£12.99
Amberley Publishing Secret Darlington
The County Durham town of Darlington has a long and interesting history. In medieval times it was a market town for the surrounding area, with records of the market dating back to the twelfth century. The Victorian covered market is an iconic feature at the heart of Darlington today but was hugely controversial when built in the 1860s and its floor collapsed when it opened, killing a local farmer. By this time Darlington had been transformed by the opening of the world’s first passenger railway in the town, built with the wealth acquired by the Pease family’s wool mills. Secret Darlington explores the lesser-known episodes and characters in the history of the town through the centuries, including scandals such as the Cheese Affair involving the Bishop of Durham, war heroes, sporting stars such as the dentist who won the town’s first Olympic gold medal as a football goalkeeper but who died while making a save, a Quaker-born adventurer who fled to Easter Island, a global screen star engaged to Fred Perry who died in an air raid during the Second World War, campaigners for women’s suffrage, industries that have disappeared today including the forge that built the rudder for the Titanic, and forgotten places of entertainment, not least the largest number of cinemas per head of population in the country in the 1930s. With tales of remarkable people, unusual events and tucked-away historical places, Secret Darlington will appeal to all those with an interest in the history of this town in County Durham.
£15.99
Minotaur Books,US Home at Night
t’s Halloween in Vermont, winter is coming, and five humans, two dogs, and a cat are a crowd in Mercy Carr’s small cabin. She needs more room - and she knows just the place: Grackle Tree Farm, with thirty acres of woods and wetlands and a Victorian manor to die for. They say it’s haunted by the ghosts of missing children and lost poets and a murderer or two, but Mercy loves it anyway. Even when Elvis finds a dead body in the library. There’s something about Grackle Tree Farm that people are willing to kill for - and Mercy needs to figure out what before they move in. A coded letter found on the victim points to a hidden treasure that may be worth a fortune - if it’s real. She and Captain Thrasher conduct a search of the old place - and end up at the wrong end of a Glock. A masked man shoots Thrasher, and she and Elvis must take him down before he murders them all. Under fire, she and Elvis manage to run the guy off, but not before they are wounded, leaving Thrasher fighting for his life in the hospital, Mercy on crutches, and Elvis on the mend. Now it’s up to Mercy and Troy and the dogs to track down the masked murderer in a county overflowing with leaf peepers, Halloween revelers, and treasure hunters and bring him to justice before he strikes again and the treasure is lost forever, along with the good name of Grackle Tree Farm….
£21.59
Headline Publishing Group A Daughter's Promise: A new festive winter saga for 2023
AS RECOMMENDED BY LYN ANDREWS Liverpool, 1861.Annie Shaw longs to be taken seriously. At 14, she's fed up of being babied by her big sister Delilah. It's true that Delilah has been the closest thing to a mother that Annie or any of her siblings have ever known, but she's secretive about the past and won't let her little sister out of her sight. When Annie's old friend Clara visits with tales of the good money that can be made at the cotton mill outside Ormskirk, she sees her chance at adventure and runs away.The work is gruelling and Annie is shocked to witness children as young as eight working long days around dangerous machinery. But it seems that, as long as the cotton is produced on time, the mill owners turn a blind eye to the very real human toll to be paid. The children from the workhouse are treated especially poorly and Annie can't help but make it her responsibility to rescue them.Soon Annie finds herself caring for three young orphans, now a makeshift mum herself. As hard times hit the mill and hundreds of jobs are lost, will Annie be able to keep her young charges warm, fed and safe? In order to face a turbulent future, Annie needs to first dig into the secrets buried in the past . . .PRAISE FOR JUDY SUMMERS:'I thoroughly enjoyed this book... The characters are well drawn and believable' - Lyn Andrews'Fascinating insights into Victorian Liverpool and a heart-warming story make for an inspiring read' - Mollie Walton
£8.99
Amberley Publishing Birmingham in 50 Buildings
Although Birmingham’s history goes back beyond the Middle Ages, there are only a few fragments of medieval Birmingham left, some of which have been moved from their original site as the city expanded. The city expanded rapidly in the industrial age and although Birmingham has many properties from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was radically transformed by the bombing raids of the Second World War and the subsequent rejuvenation by city planners. Some 1960s and 1970s buildings like the Rotunda have become icons of the city, but in recent years much of the mid-twentieth-century building, often in concrete brutalist style, has in turn been replaced by new structures like Beetham Tower and Birmingham Library. As England’s second city, Birmingham was a major centre of manufacture, and many of the buildings still stand today. It was also the home of a significant art and architecture movement, the Arts and Crafts movement, which has left its mark on the architectural legacy of Birmingham. Birmingham in 50 Buildings explores the history of this fascinating West Midlands metropolis through a selection of its most interesting buildings and structures, showing the changes that have taken place over the years. It uncovers the earliest churches and dwellings in the city, unique pieces of industrial architecture, the amazing heritage of Victorian religious and municipal structures, art deco cinemas, modernist high-rise blocks and iconic shopping centres. This book will appeal to all those who live in Birmingham or have an interest in the city.
£15.99
University of Pennsylvania Press Frank Furness: Architecture in the Age of the Great Machines
Frank Furness (1839-1912) has remained a curiosity to architectural historians and critics, somewhere between an icon and an enigma, whose importance and impact have yet to be properly evaluated or appreciated. To some, his work pushed pattern and proportion to extremes, undermining or forcing together the historic styles he referenced in such eclectic buildings as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania Library. To others, he was merely a regional mannerist creating an eccentric personal style that had little resonance and modest influence on the future of architecture. By placing Furness in the industrial culture that supported his work, George Thomas finds a cutting-edge revolutionary who launched the beginnings of modern design, played a key part in its evolution, and whose strategies continue to affect the built world. In his sweeping reassessment of Furness as an architect of the machine age, Thomas grounds him in Philadelphia, a city led by engineers, industrialists, and businessmen who commissioned the buildings that extended modern design to Chicago, Glasgow, and Berlin. Thomas examines the multiple facets of Victorian Philadelphia's modernity, looking to its eager embrace of innovations in engineering, transportation, technology, and building, and argues that Furness, working for a particular cohort of clients, played a central role in shaping this context. His analyses of the innovative planning, formal, and structural qualities of Furness's major buildings identifies their designs as initiators of a narrative that leads to such more obviously modern figures as Louis Sullivan, William Price, Frank Lloyd Wright and eventually, the architects of the Bauhaus. Misunderstood and reviled in the traditional architectural centers of New York and Boston, Furness's projects, commissioned by the progressive industrialists of the new machine age, intentionally broke with the historical styles of the past to work in a modern way—from utilizing principles based on logistical planning to incorporating the new materials of the industrial age. Lavishly illustrated, the book includes more than eighty black-and-white and thirty color photographs that highlight the richness of his work and the originality of his design spanning more than forty years.
£28.99
Peeters Publishers The Poem as Sacrament: The Theological Aesthetic of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Through a study of the writings and intellectual development of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dr. Philip Ballinger demonstrates why poetry is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar stated, "the absolutely appropriate theological language". While circling Hopkins' visions of the nature of sensual experience, intuitive cognition, and the function of language, Ballinger focuses upon the sacramental intention of the Victorian Jesuit's poetry. Underlying Hopkins' poetry is a vision of reality as divinely revelatory or 'self-expressive'. For Hopkins, this revelatory character of creation is determined by the incarnation, and beauty, in fact, is a word for 'Christic self-expressiveness'. "Ballinger's work is not only an introduction and primer to the subtle thought and poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins; it is also a well-crafted invitation to reassess the value of the senses, the power of language, and the centrality of beauty for the life of faith." Born in Bordeaux, France and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, Philip Ballinger brings variety of experiences to his theological reflection. After undergraduate studies in Washington and Kentucky in both philosophy and history, he continued his education with extensive graduate theological studies at the Catholic University of Louvain. A doctor of theology, he is now Dean of Admission and a lecturer in Doctoral Studies at Gonzaga University.
£33.86
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art The Classical Body in Romantic Britain
A radical, lively departure from received notions about art of the Romantic period For many, the term “neoclassicism” has come to imply discipline, order, restraint, and a certain myopia. Leaving the term behind, this book radically challenges enduring assumptions about the art produced from the late 18th century to the early Victorian period, casting new light on appropriations of the classical body by British artists. It is the first to foreground the intersections of gender, race, and class in discussions of British visual classicism, laying bare artists’ alternately politicizing and emphatically sensual engagements with Greco-Roman art. Rather than rely exclusively on subsequent scholarship, the book takes up the poet John Keats (1795–1821) as a theoretical framework. Eschewing the “Golden Age” narrative, which sees J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) as the pinnacle of the period’s artistic achievement, the book examines overlooked artists, such as Henry Howard (1769–1847) and John Graham Lough (1798–1876). The result is a fresh account of underappreciated works of British painting and sculpture.Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
£40.00
Boydell & Brewer Ltd Medievalist Traditions in Nineteenth-Century British Culture: Celebrating the Calendar Year
A survey of the rituals of the year in Victorian England, showing the influence of the Middle Ages. What does a maypole represent? Why eat hot cross buns? Did Dick Whittington have a cat? All these questions are related to a larger one that nineteenth-century Britons asked themselves: which was more fun: living in their own time, or living in the Middle Ages? While Britain was becoming the most industrially-advanced nation in the world, many vaunted the superiority of the present to the past-yet others felt that if shadows of past ways of life haunted the present, they were friendly ghosts. This book explores such ghosts and how real or imagined remnants of medieval celebration in a variety of forms created a cultural idea of the Middle Ages. As Britons found, or thought that they found, traces of the medieval in traditions tied to times of the year, medievalism became not only the justification but also the inspiration for community festivity, from Christmas and Boxing Day through Maytime rituals to Hallowe'en, as show in the writings of amongst many others Keats, Browning and Dickens.
£80.00
University of Nebraska Press Murder and Counterrevolution in Mexico: The Eyewitness Account of German Ambassador Paul von Hintze, 1912-1914
Admiral Paul von Hintze arrived in Mexico in the spring of 1911 to serve as Germany’s ambassador to a country in a state of revolution. Germany’s emperor Wilhelm II had selected Hintze as his personal eyes and ears in Mexico (and concomitantly the neighboring United States) during the portentous years leading up to the First World War. The ambassador benefited from a network of informers throughout Mexico and was closely involved in the country’s political and diplomatic machinations as the violent revolution played out. Murder and Counterrevolution in Mexico presents Hintze’s eyewitness accounts of these turbulent years. Hintze’s diary, telegrams, letters, and other records, translated, edited, and annotated by Friedrich E. Schuler, offer detailed insight into Victoriano Huerta’s overthrow and assassination of Francisco Madero and Huerta’s ensuing dictatorship and chronicle the U.S.-supported resistance. Showcasing the political relationship between Germany and Mexico, Hintze’s suspenseful, often daily diary entries provide new insight into the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution, including U.S. diplomatic maneuvers and subterfuge, as well as an intriguing backstory to the infamous 1917 Zimmermann Telegram, which precipitated U.S. entry into World War I.
£23.99
University of Illinois Press The Education of Phillips Brooks
Brooks's theological and intellectual lineageThe Education of Phillips Brooks probes the formative years of one of the best-known figures of Victorian America's "Gilded Age". Rigorously researched, bringing as yet untapped archival material into play, John F. Woolverton's book is an extremely readable and fascinating look at a gifted, persuasive clergyman and public figure. The sermon Brooks delivered at his Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia while Abraham Lincoln's body lay in state overnight in Independence Hall was published, making him nationally famous overnight. He also is known for penning the lyrics to "O Little Town of Bethlehem". Although Brooks was not a major theologian, he was nurtured in an atmosphere of serious religious thought. In the crisis era of pre-Civil War America, he sought a religious and cultural ideal in the "perfect manhood" of Jesus Christ and consequently "won a name" for himself, as his slightly envious cousin, Henry Adams, once remarked. Woolverton places Brooks in his cultural context and shows how this religious leader was shaped psychologically and by his times and how those factors helped him forge a spiritual ideal for a troubled nation.
£22.99
The University of Chicago Press Richard Owen: Biology without Darwin
In the mid-1850s, no scientist in the British Empire was more visible than Richard Owen. Mentioned in the same breath as Newton and championed as Britain's answer to France's Cuvier and Germany's von Humboldt, Owen was, as the "Times" declared in 1856, the most 'distinguished man of science in the country'. But a century and a half later, Owen remains largely obscured by the shadow of the most famous Victorian naturalist of all, Darwin. Publicly marginalized by his contemporaries for his critique of natural selection, Owen suffered personal attacks that undermined his credibility long after his name faded from history. With this innovative biography, Nicolaas Rupke resuscitates Owen's reputation. Arguing that Owen should no longer be judged by the evolution dispute that figured in only a minor part of his work, Rupke stresses context, emphasizing the importance of places and practices in the production and reception of scientific knowledge. Dovetailing with the recent resurgence of interest in Owen's life and work, Rupke's book brings the forgotten naturalist back into the canon of the history of science and demonstrates how much biology existed with, and without, Darwin.
£31.49
The University of Chicago Press Doctoring Traditions: Ayurveda, Small Technologies, and Braided Sciences
Like many of the traditional medicines of South Asia, Ayurvedic practice changed dramatically in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With Doctoring Tradition, Projit Bihari Mukharji offers a close look at that transformation, upending the widely held yet little-examined belief that it was the result of the introduction of Western anatomical knowledge and cadaveric dissection. Rather, Mukharji reveals, what instigated those changes were a number of small technologies that were introduced in the period by Ayurvedic physicians, men who were simultaneously Victorian gentlemen and members of a particular Bengali caste. The introduction of these devices, including thermometers, watches, and microscopes, Mukharji shows, ultimately led to a dramatic reimagining of the body. The new Ayurvedic body that thus emerged by the 1930s, while different from the biomedical body, was nonetheless largely compatible with it. The more incompatible elements of the old Ayurvedic body were then rendered therapeutically indefensible and impossible to imagine in practice. The new Ayurvedic medicine, therefore, was the product not of an embrace of Western approaches, but of a creative attempt to develop a viable alternative to the Western tradition by braiding together elements drawn from both the West and the East.
£39.00
Bodleian Library Julia Margaret Cameron: A Poetry of Photography
Renowned photographer Julia Margaret Cameron is famous for her evocative portraits of eminent Victorians, including John Herschel, Alfred Tennyson, Henry Taylor, George Frederic Watts, Ellen Terry and Julia Stephen. This study of her work reveals how deeply she was convinced of the poetic possibilities of her medium, particularly its capacity for suggestive rather than literal meaning. She did not get it right on all counts, and her practice violated the aesthetic orthodoxy of the day. But the blurring of the ‘real’ subject before her lens created unparalleled possibilities for a broader pursuit of the sublime and beautiful. Drawing on over 100 items from the photographic collections at the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, as well as comparative works of art, this book celebrates a collection that illustrates the aesthetic development of the photographer from her earliest pictures to her most poetic photographs. It also includes her own poetry and the key images she created for her extraordinary Illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and Other Poems, demonstrating her fascination with the artistic connection between poetry and photography.
£45.00
Little, Brown Book Group An End To Murder: Human beings have always been cruel, savage and murderous. Is all that about to change?
Creatively and intellectually there is no other species that has ever come close to equalling humanity’s achievements, but nor is any other species as suicidally prone to internecine conflict. We are the only species on the planet whose ingrained habit of conflict constitutes the chief threat to our own survival. Human history can be seen as a catalogue of cold-hearted murders, mindless blood-feuds, appalling massacres and devastating wars, but, with developments in forensic science and modern psychology, and with raised education levels throughout the world, might it soon be possible to reign in humanity’s homicidal habits? Falling violent crime statistics in every part of the world seem to indicate that something along those lines might indeed be happening. Colin and Damon Wilson, who between them have been covering the field of criminology for over fifty years, offer an analysis of the overall spectrum of human violence. They consider whether human beings are in reality as cruel and violent as is generally believed and they explore the possibility that humankind is on the verge of a fundamental change: that we are about to become truly civilised. As well as offering an overview of violence throughout our history – from the first hominids to the twenty-first century, touching on key moments of change and also indicating where things have not changed since the Stone Age – they explore the latest psychological, forensic and social attempts to understand and curb modern human violence. To begin with, they examine questions such as: Were the first humans cannibalistic? Did the birth of civilisation also lead to the invention of war and slavery? Priests and kings brought social stability, but were they also the instigators of the first mass murders? Is it in fact wealth that is the ultimate weapon? They look at slavery and ancient Roman sadism, but also the possibility that our own distaste for pain and cruelty is no more than a social construct. They show how the humanitarian ideas of the great religious innovators all too quickly became distorted by organised religious structures. The book ranges widely, from fifteenth-century Baron Gilles de Rais, ‘Bluebeard’, the first known and possibly most prolific serial killer in history, to Victorian domestic murder and the invention of psychiatry and Sherlock Holmes and the invention of forensic science; from the fifteenth-century Taiping Rebellion in China, in which up to 36 million died to the First and Second World Wars and more recent genocides and instances of ‘ethnic cleansing’, and contemporary terrorism. They conclude by assessing the very real possibility that the internet and the greater freedom of information it has brought is leading, gradually, to a profoundly more civilised world than at any time in the past.
£10.99
Reaktion Books Pet Revolution: Animals and the Making of Modern British Life: 2023
A history of pets and their companions in Britain from the Victorians to today.Pet Revolution tracks the British love affair with pets over the last two centuries, showing how the kinds of pets we keep, as well as how we relate to and care for them, has changed radically. The book describes the growth of pet foods and medicines, the rise of pet shops, and the development of veterinary care, creating the pet economy. Most importantly, pets have played a powerful emotional role in families across all social classes, creating new kinds of relationships and home lives.For the first time, through a history of companion animals and the humans who lived with them, this book puts the story of the ‘pet revolution’ alongside other revolutions — industrial, agricultural, political — to highlight how animals contributed to modern British life. 'Hamlett and Strange state that their aim is to chart 200 years of pet-keeping in order to ‘understand how pets became so integral to the British and their homes’. In this richly detailed and enjoyable history, they have achieved their purpose.' — Daily Mail'From pet economics to pet cemeteries, this wonderfully engaging history explains the changing role of pets over two hundred years. It is as entertaining as it is informative, comprising charming stories and smart analysis.' — Claire Langhamer, Director of the Institute of Historical Research, London'Pet Revolution chronicles the increasing integration of pets into British life in fresh and fascinating detail. It shows how the definition of 'pet' narrowed over the last two centuries, as pet ownership spread through all social classes and the status of non-human animals evolved. The broad range of sources and engaging illustrations document the intense commitment that pets (or animal companions, as they are sometimes termed currently) inspired in their humans.' — Harriet Ritvo, Arthur J. Conner Emeritus Professor of History, MIT
£20.00
HarperCollins Publishers This Other London: Adventures in the Overlooked City
Join John Rogers as he ventures out into an uncharted London like a redbrick Indiana Jones in search of the lost meaning of our metropolitan existence. Nursing two reluctant knees and a can of Stella, he perambulates through the seasons seeking adventure in our city’s remote and forgotten reaches. When John Rogers packed away his rucksack to start a family in London he didn’t stop travelling. But instead of canoeing up the Rejang River to find retired headhunters in Sarawak, he caught the ferry to Woolwich in search of the edge of the city at Crayford Marshes. This Other London recounts that journey and many others – all on foot and epic in their own cartilage-crunching way. Clutching a samosa and a handful of out-of-date A-Zs, he heads out into the wilderness of isolated luxury apartment blocks in Brentford, the ruins of Lesnes Abbey near Thamesmead, and the ancient Lammas Lands in Leyton. Denounced by his young sons as a ‘hippy wizard’, Rogers delves into some of the overlooked stories rumbling beneath the tarmac of the city suburbs. Holy wells in Lewisham; wassailing in Clapton; a heretical fresco in West Ham. He encounters the Highwaymen of Hounslow Heath, Viet Cong vets still fighting Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket in Beckton, Dutch sailors marooned at Erith pier; and cyclists – without Bradley Wiggins’ sideburns – at Herne Hill Velodrome. He heads out to Uxendon Hill to witness the end of the world, Horsenden Hill to learn its legend, and Tulse Hill to the observatory of the Victorian Brian Cox. This Other London will take you into the hinterland of the city. The London that is lived in; the London where workaday dormitory suburbs sit atop a rich history that could rival Westminster and Tower Bridge. In an age when no corner of the globe has been left untrampled-upon by hordes of tourists, it is time to discover the wonders on our doorstep. This Other London is your gateway through the underexplored nooks of London. As Pathfinder wrote in 1911, ‘Adventure begins at home’.
£9.99
Rowman & Littlefield Marriage & Love: Instructions For Females On Courtship And Matrimony, With Tips To Discourage Sexual Advances From Husbands
The more red-faced and bearded or impulsive a man, the more dark, calm, cool and quiet should his wife be; and vice versa. Those very fleshy should not marry those equally so, but those spare and slim. A spare man is much better adapted to a fleshy woman than a round-favored man. Two very beautiful persons rarely do or should marry; nor two extra homely. Learn all this and much, much more in Marriage and Love, a gem of Victorian wisdom on courtship and marriage, immoral conduct, and what to look for in a spouse. The ideal funny gift book for newlyweds or brides-to-be, it includes a potpourri of advice on such matters as wooing and courting; determining the character of a potential mate by hair color, eye color, nose type, laugh, and height; tips on encouraging—and avoiding—sex with your husband; how to dress up, spruce up, and be on the alert; and, of course, the acceptable length and frequency of unavoidable sexual encounters. Includes essential advice on: *Wooing and courting*Determining the character of a potential mate by hair color, eye color, nose type, laugh, and height*Tips on avoiding sex with your husband*The evils of novels and the theater*The dangers of over-corseting*• HowHow to dress up, spruce up, and be on the alert. ("Don’t wait too long to get one much more perfect than you are; but settle on some one soon."} • Appropriate night-wear for the wedded couple• The acceptable length and frequency of unavoidable sexual encounters
£11.40
Boydell & Brewer Ltd The Wonder of the North: Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal
A history and tour of this exceptionally beautiful designed landscape in North Yorkshire. Dubbed "the Wonder of the North" in 1732, the National Trust's Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Estate (now a World Heritage Site) encompasses one of the largest, most magnificent and beautiful designed landscapes ever created. This richly illustrated volume charts the landscape's history from the first arrival of prehistoric hunters, via medieval monasticism, the Dissolution of the monasteries, eighteenth-century aestheticism and scandal, and the first ages of mass tourism, to the present day. At the heart of the story lies the rise and fall of England's largest Cistercian monastery and how that shaped the origins of the Aislabie family's breathtaking gardens. Their Studley Royalwas at the forefront of every emergent landscape gardening fashion between 1670 and 1800. The book also describes the dramatic history of the family and the monumental scale of their achievements in this field, extending over many dozens of square miles of North Yorkshire - far beyond the limits of the garden as it is seen today (reduced to serve the more limited needs of Victorian day-trippers). The Wonder of the North brings social and garden history together with archaeology to reveal Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal - too often seen as "just" a ruined medieval monastery - as one of the world's greatest artistic creations. Mark Newman has been the National Trust's archaeological adviser for Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal estate since 1988. He was also resident there, living in Fountains Hall from 1988-1995.
£38.75
University of Toronto Press Canadian Intellectuals, the Tory Tradition, and the Challenge of Modernity, 1939-1970
In this well-researched book, Philip Massolin takes a fascinating look at the forces of modernization that swept through English Canada, beginning at the turn of the twentieth century. Victorian values - agrarian, religious - and the adherence to a rigid set of philosophical and moral codes were being replaced with those intrinsic to the modern age: industrial, secular, scientific, and anti-intellectual. This work analyses the development of a modern consciousness through the eyes of the most fervent critics of modernity - adherents to the moral and value systems associated with Canada's tory tradition. The work and thought of social and moral critics Harold Innis, Donald Creighton, Vincent Massey, Hilda Neatby, George P. Grant, W.L. Morton, Northrop Frye, and Marshall McLuhan are considered for their views of modernization and for their strong opinions on the nature and implications of the modern age. These scholars shared concerns over the dire effects of modernity and the need to attune Canadians to the realities of the modern age. Whereas most Canadians were oblivious to the effects of modernization, these critics perceived something ominous: far from being a sign of true progress, modernization was a blight on cultural development. In spite of the efforts of these critics, Canada emerged as a fully modern nation by the 1970s. Because of the triumph of modernity, the toryism that the critics advocated ceased to be a defining feature of the nation's life. Modernization, in short, contributed to the passing of an intellectual tradition centuries in the making and rapidly led to the ideological underpinnings of today's modern Canada.
£35.00
Princeton University Press The Match Girl and the Heiress
Nellie Dowell was a match factory girl in Victorian London who spent her early years consigned to orphanages and hospitals. Muriel Lester, the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder, longed to be free of the burden of money and possessions. Together, these unlikely soulmates sought to remake the world according to their own utopian vision of Christ's teachings. The Match Girl and the Heiress paints an unforgettable portrait of their late-nineteenth-century girlhoods of wealth and want, and their daring twentieth-century experiments in ethical living in a world torn apart by war, imperialism, and industrial capitalism. In this captivating book, Seth Koven chronicles how each traveled the globe--Nellie as a spinster proletarian laborer, Muriel as a well-heeled tourist and revered Christian peacemaker, anticolonial activist, and humanitarian. Koven vividly describes how their lives crossed in the slums of East London, where they inaugurated a grassroots revolution that took the Sermon on the Mount as a guide to achieving economic and social justice for the dispossessed. Koven shows how they devoted themselves to Kingsley Hall--Gandhi's London home in 1931 and Britain's first "people's house" founded on the Christian principles of social sharing, pacifism, and reconciliation--and sheds light on the intimacies and inequalities of their loving yet complicated relationship. The Match Girl and the Heiress probes the inner lives of these two extraordinary women against the panoramic backdrop of shop-floor labor politics, global capitalism, counterculture spirituality, and pacifist feminism to expose the wounds of poverty and neglect that Christian love could never heal.
£27.00
Princeton University Press Edward Elgar and His World
Edward Elgar (1857-1934) is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating, important, and influential figures in the history of British music. He rose from humble beginnings and achieved fame with music that to this day is beloved by audiences in England, and his work has secured an enduring legacy worldwide. Leading scholars examine the composer's life in Edward Elgar and His World, presenting a comprehensive portrait of both the man and the age in which he lived. Elgar's achievement is remarkably varied and wide-ranging, from immensely popular works like the famous Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1--a standard feature of American graduations--to sweeping masterpieces like his great oratorio The Dream of Gerontius. The contributors explore Elgar's Catholicism, which put him at odds with the prejudices of Protestant Britain; his glorification of British colonialism; his populist tendencies; his inner life as an inspired autodidact; the aristocratic London drawing rooms where his reputation was made; the class prejudice with which he contended throughout his career; and his anguished reaction to World War I. Published in conjunction with the 2007 Bard Music Festival and the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth, this elegant and thought-provoking volume illuminates the greatness of this accomplished English composer and brings vividly to life the rich panorama of Victorian and Edwardian Britain. The contributors are Byron Adams, Leon Botstein, Rachel Cowgill, Sophie Fuller, Daniel M. Grimley, Nalini Ghuman Gwynne, Deborah Heckert, Charles Edward McGuire, Matthew Riley, Alison I. Shiel, and Aidan J. Thomson.
£28.80
The University of Chicago Press Oscar Wilde Prefigured: Queer Fashioning and British Caricature, 1750-1900
"I do not say you are it, but you look it, and you pose at it, which is just as bad," Lord Queensbury challenged Oscar Wilde in the courtroom which erupted in laughter accusing Wilde of posing as a sodomite. What was so terrible about posing as a sodomite, and why was Queensbury's horror greeted with such amusement? In Oscar Wilde Prefigured, Dominic Janes suggests that what divided the two sides in this case was not so much the question of whether Wilde was or was not a sodomite, but whether or not it mattered that people could appear to be sodomites. For many, intimations of sodomy were simply a part of the amusing spectacle of sophisticated life.Oscar Wilde Prefigured is a study of the prehistory of this "queer moment" in 1895. Janes explores the complex ways in which men who desired sex with men in Britain had expressed such interests through clothing, style, and deportment since the mid-eighteenth century. He supplements the well-established narrative of the inscription of sodomitical acts into a homosexual label and identity at the end of the nineteenth century by teasing out the means by which same-sex desires could be signaled through visual display in Georgian and Victorian Britain. Wilde, it turns out, is not the starting point for public queer figuration. He is the pivot by which Georgian figures and twentieth-century camp stereotypes meet. Drawing on the mutually reinforcing phenomena of dandyism and caricature of alleged effeminates, Janes examines a wide range of images drawn from theater, fashion, and the popular press to reveal new dimensions of identity politics, gender performance, and queer culture.
£35.12
Reaktion Books Modern Interior
Through the impact of shops like Habitat and IKEA, and of the countless glossy magazines, books and catalogues that focus on the concept of 'interior design', we have all become familiar with the idea of our homes and public interiors containing items of modern furniture and decor. Yet design historian and critic Penny Sparke shows that, unlike designed buildings and artefacts, the fixed idea of the 'modern interior' has only ever been an abstract and idealized concept, promoted through exhibitions, retail contexts and the mass media, and that it rarely exists in an absolute form. "The Modern Interior" provides a persuasive account of the forces, conflicts and debates that have underpinned the emergence of something we now effortlessly refer to as the 'modern interior'. Offering fascinating and eloquent insights into the work of international designers including C.R. Mackintosh, Adolf Loos, Josef Frank, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, Lilly Reich, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Philippe Starck, and Charles and Ray Eames, Sparke focuses on the realities as well as concepts of the modern interior, whether in the hands of professional decorators and designers, or in those of its amateur inhabitants. By doing so, she deftly unravels the shift from Victorian to modern style, and demonstrates that the easy transition to the modern interior so frequently portrayed is little more than a mythology. "The Modern Interior" is essential reading for all students of modern design, architecture and culture, as well as anyone interested in why the interior spaces we inhabit look the way they do.
£23.11
Oregon State University Spinning Tea Cups: A Mythical American Memoir
In Spinning Tea Cups: A Mythical American Memoir, Alexandra Teague explores cycles of family trauma and both the dangerous and recuperative powers of fantasy. Teague attempts to understand and contextualize her “feral Victorian” family in terms of trauma and mental health, but also with deep love and humor. How did people who prided themselves on making everything from scratch take annual trips to Disney World? What did it mean that Teague’s mother claimed to have psychic abilities? How did her sensitive youngest nephew end up talking in a voice that wasn’t his own? Why did Teague, the daughter of educated non-conformist parents, marry as a teenager (with her parents’ blessing) and spend seven years in an abusive relationship? How do family legacies of grief and dysfunction and creativity intersect? How do any of us make meaning or escape our circumstances without replicating the fantasies or escapism with which we’ve been raised? Teague is carefully attuned to the vagaries of geographical cultures, and she weaves her family’s history and weighty explorations of trauma and psychology not just with pop culture but with the specific cultures of the places she and her family pass through: the Bay Area, a tiny college town in the Inland Northwest, a Southwest ghost town, a Texas city, an Arkansas hippie bubble, and Central Florida suburb. Spinning Tea Cups will appeal to readers interested in American cultural studies, those concerned with the ongoing crisis of mental illness in this country, and those who simply love strange, quirky, richly told stories.
£24.95
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC No Life for a Lady
***Pre-order Hannah Dolby's next Historical rom-com, How to Solve Murders Like a Lady, now! Perfect for fans of cosy mysteries and female detectives*** *** Violet Hamilton is a woman who knows her own mind. Which, in Victorian Hastings, can make things a little complicated... At 28, Violet's father is beginning to worry she will never find a husband. But every suitor he presents, Violet finds a new and inventive means of rebuffing. Because Violet does not want to marry. She wants to work, and make her own way in the world. But more than anything, she wants to find her mother Lily, who disappeared from Hastings Pier 10 years earlier. Finding the missing is no job for a lady, but when Violet hires a seaside detective to help, she sets off a chain of events that will put more than just her reputation at risk. Can Violet solve the mystery of Lily Hamilton's vanishing before it's too late? A delightfully joyful, funny and gripping historical novel, perfect for fans of The Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting and The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels. *** 'Glorious... it's funny from the start.' – The Daily Mail 'Delightfully quirky, joyful and original... it will help you bounce exuberantly into spring' – Adele Parks 'If you loved Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, you'll love to snuggle up with this novel!' – Chat *** A delightfully joyful, funny and gripping historical novel, perfect for fans of The Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting and The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels.
£17.77
Orion Publishing Co Milk: An Intimate History of Breastfeeding
When Joanna Wolfarth was pregnant with her first child, she assumed she would breastfeed, as her mother had fed her. Yet she was unprepared for the startling realities of new motherhood. Then, just four weeks after the birth, she found herself back in hospital with an underweight baby, bewildered by inconsistent advice and overcome with feelings of guilt and isolation.Months later, her cultural historian's impulse led her to look to the past for guidance. What she discovered, neglected in the archives, amazed and reassured her. By piecing together cultural debris - from fragments of ancient baby bottles to eighteenth-century breast pumps, from the Palaeolithic Woman of Willendorf figurine to the poignantly inventive work of Louise Bourgeois and from mythical accounts of the creation of the Milky Way to advice found in Victorian medical manuals - Joanna began to understand how feeding our babies can be culturally, economically and physiologically determined as well as deeply personal and emotive.Using the arc of her own experience, Joanna takes us on an intimate journey of discovery beyond mother and baby, asking how the world views caregivers, their bodies, their labour and their communal bonds. By bringing together art, social histories, philosophy, folk wisdom and contemporary interviews with women from across the world, Milk reveals how infant feeding has been represented and repressed, celebrated and censured. In doing so, Joanna charts previously unexplored territory and offers comfort and solace to anyone who has fed or will feed a child.
£17.09
Simon & Schuster Ltd Mister: The Men Who Taught The World How To Beat England At Their Own Game
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR.SUNDAY TIMES SPORT BOOK OF THE YEAR. From its late-Victorian flowering in the mill towns of the northwest of England, football spread around the world with great speed. It was helped on its way by a series of missionaries who showed the rest of the planet the simple joys of the game. Even now, in many countries, the colloquial word for a football manager is not 'coach' or 'boss' but 'mister', as that is how the early teachers were known, because they had come from the home of the sport to help it develop in new territories. In Rory Smith's stunning new book Mister, he looks at the stories of these pioneers of the game, men who left this country to take football across the globe. Sometimes, they had been spurned in their own land, as coaching was often frowned upon in England in those days, when players were starved of the ball during the week to make them hungry for it on matchday. So it was that the inspirations behind the 'Mighty Magyars' of the 1950s, the Dutch of the 1970s or top clubs such as Barcelona came from these shores. England, without realising it, fired the very revolution that would remove its crown, changing football's history, thanks to a handful of men who sowed the seeds of the inversion of football's natural order. This is the story of the men who taught the world to play and shaped its destiny. This is the story of the Misters.
£9.99
Hodder & Stoughton Searching for Juliet: The Lives and Deaths of Shakespeare's First Tragic Heroine
'Invigorating ... engaging ... thrilling' Samantha Ellis, GUARDIAN'An astonishing tour-de-force . . . Juliet has found the biographer she deserves' Marion TurnerA cultural, historical, and literary exploration of the birth, death, and legacy of the ultimate romantic heroine - Shakespeare's Juliet CapuletJuliet Capulet is the heartbeat of the world's most famous love story. She is an enduring romantic icon. And she is a captivating, brilliant, passionate teenage girl who is read and interpreted afresh by each new generation.Searching for Juliet takes us from the Renaissance origin stories behind William Shakespeare's child bride to the boy actor who inspired her creation onstage. From enslaved people in the Caribbean to Italian fascists in Verona, and real-life lovers in Afghanistan. From the Victorian stage to 1960s cinema, Baz Luhrmann, and beyond.Sophie Duncan draws on rich cultural and historical sources and new research to explore the legacy and reach of Romeo and Juliet far beyond the literary sphere. With warmth, wit, and insight, she shows us why Juliet is for now, for ever, for everyone.'Deeply researched and wryly written, Searching for Juliet makes us think again about a character and a story we thought we knew' Robert Douglas-Fairhurst'Original, stylish, and compelling . . . It's a marvellous book, and one that delivers a powerfully inspiring message to the young Juliets of our own troubled times' Miranda Seymour'A powerful, witty, and provocative exploration of sex and gender, youth and age, love and death' Anna Beer
£22.50
SparkPress But Not Forever: A Novel
Could she be everything you aren't, but somehow—still be you? It’s the year 2015 and Sonnet McKay is the daughter of a globe-trotting diplomat, home for the summer from her exotic life. Everything would be perfect if not for her stunning sister, whose bright star has left her in the shadows. In 1895, Emma Sweetwine is trapped in a Victorian mansion, dreaming of wings to fly her far from her mother, who gives her love to her sons, leaving nothing for her daughter. Fate puts them in the same house at the same moment, 120 years apart, and the identical fifteen-year-olds are switched in time. In their new worlds, Sonnet falls in love with a boy, Emma falls in love with a life, and astonishing family secrets are revealed. Torn, both girls want to still go home— but can either one give up what they now have? But Not Forever is an enchanting story of love and longing, and the heart's ultimate quest to find where it belongs.
£13.67
Nick Hern Books Bombshells
Six funny and perceptive monologues about the stresses of modern female life. Meryl Davenport – A mother who tells the story of her non-stop day in a rapid-fire internal monologue. Tiggy Entwhistle – A cactus lover bravely attempting to rise above her relationship crisis. Mary O'Donnell – A feisty teenage schoolgirl competing in a talent quest. Theresa McTerry – An increasingly disillusioned bride on her wedding day. Winsome Webster – A widow with an appetite for the unexpected. Zoe Struthers – An American cabaret singer who's had her fair share of personal problems. Joanna Murray-Smith's play Bombshells was first performed by Caroline O'Connor at the Fairfax Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne, Australia, in December 2001. It was revived at the same venue in 2004, transferring to the York Theatre in Sydney in April 2004. A reduced version consisting of four monologues was performed by Caroline O'Connor as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, in 2004. This production – now consisting of all six monologues – transferred to the Arts Theatre in the West End in September 2004.
£11.99
Schiffer Publishing Ltd Connecticut Ghosts: Spirits in the State of Steady Habits
Explore 31 of Connecticut's most haunted sites along with a clairvoyant with first hand knowledge of the spirits of whom she speaks! On this spectral tour encounter ghosts in famous homes, including the residences of Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The lively spirits in Hartford, Fairfield, Litchfield County, Middlesex, New Haven, New London, Tolland, and Windham County are all revealed. Meet the ghost of a young murder victim haunting the Pettibone Tavern, the prisoners who never left the mines of Old New-Gate prison, and visit an abandoned town so cursed local residents have changed the name of the road leading to it to keep the curious away. Connecticut's history of witchcraft and the Victorian séances of Hartford are also revealed. Fascinating text provides details of ghost-hunting methods used during research, useful methods for cleansing negative spirits, and directions to the sites. Everyone intrigued by ghosts and life beyond death will enjoy the thirty-two images that provide evidence of spirits moving among us.
£9.99
Schiffer Publishing Ltd The ABC's of ABC Ware
This delightful book examines the graphics found on all kinds of children's alphabet ware, along with fascinating histories of the firms that produced it. Primarily made in nineteenth century Britain, America, and Germany, these ceramic plates, metal table and flatware, glass dishes, and mugs are considered a reflection of the technologies, values, and styles of the Victorian era. Alphabetically arranged, the twenty-six lettered chapters each tell part of the story: A begins the tale with a bit of American history, B tells of the early bonfires and nineteenth century bottle ovens, C discusses commercialism, D displays deep dishes, E reviews the role of the ware in educating the young … and so on, all the way to Z. The extensively researched text is accompanied by over 1000 stunning photographs of these historic pieces, with detailed captions providing measurements, information on manufacturers and marks, circa dates, and current values. A must for every enthusiast's library, this unique and comprehensive text guides readers through every aspect of collecting alphabet ware.
£57.59
University of Pennsylvania Press Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers
How has Paris, the world's fashion capital, influenced Milan, New York, and Tokyo? When did the Marlboro Man become a symbol of American masculinity? Why do Americans love to dress down in high-tech Lycra fabrics, while they wax nostalgic for quaint, old-fashioned Victorian cottages? Fashion icons and failures have long captivated the general public, but few scholars have examined the historical role of business and commerce in creating the international market for style goods. Producing Fashion is a groundbreaking collection of original essays that shows how economic institutions in Europe and North America laid the foundation for the global fashion system and sustained it commercially through the mechanisms of advertising, licensing, marketing, publishing, and retailing. The collection reveals how public and private institutions—from government censors in imperial Russia to large corporations in the United States—worked to shape fashion, style, and taste with varying degrees of success. Fourteen contributors draw on original research and fresh insight into the producers of fashion—advertising agents, architects, corporate executives, department stores, designers, editors, government officials, hairdressers, haute couturiers, and Web retailers—in their bid for influence, acclaim, and shoppers' dollars. Producing Fashion looks to the past, revealing the rationale behind style choices, while explaining how the interplay of custom, invented traditions, and sales imperatives continue to drive innovation in the fashion industries.
£27.99