Search results for ""Author Victoria"

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

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An affectionate but meticulously researched history of one of the most beautiful and best-loved corners of England – Crosthwaite Parish, nestling deep within the mountains and valleys of the Lake District. 'A unique contribution to English history' Hunter Davies 'A delightful, refreshingly written book, attentive to social detail and telling the only story that matters – history' Simon Jenkins 'A wonderful book' Margaret Drabble 'A completely fresh perspective on the Lakes and Lake Poets... I hugely enjoyed it' Andrew Marr Bounded by the peaks of Scafell, Skiddaw and Helvellyn, and embracing such well-known landmarks as Borrowdale, Derwentwater and Keswick, it lies within the heart of the Lake Poets' landscape and its rugged terrain excites passion in all those who know it. The Parish also boasts a remarkable history. Its 90 square miles were governed, from medieval times, by eighteen annually chosen 'customary tenants'; ancestors of the people who later prompted Wordsworth's portrayal of the area as 'a perfect Republic of Shepherds and agriculturalists'. His fellow poet Robert Southey lived within the Parish for forty years, was an active parishioner and rests in St Kentigern's churchyard. Here he is given his rightful position as a Lake Poet. In the nineteenth century, the Victorian state killed off the old parish system, sweeping away the egalitarian rule of the Eighteen Men. But a degree of redemption was at hand. Canon Rawnsley, vicar of Crosthwaite from 1883, pledged to defend the Lake District for future generations. So the Parish was at the heart of the creation of the National Trust and blazed a trail for a wider movement to preserve the English landscape. Writing with a historian's rigour and bearing aloft the banner of the Lake District statesmen, Philippa Harrison has produced a magisterial and fascinating record of a parish with a unique social, cultural and aesthetic resonance in English history.

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Prince Dmitry Rostov, Anglophile lover of English poetry, especially Shakespeare, has a bicycling accident. It occurs beside Wordsworth's "sylvan Wye". More sinister and worrying are a ghostly white figure, a strange black boat, a blood-red rose cast on the water, a train whistle and a gunshot, all of which make him witness to a "gap in nature" that will ultimately involve him in a unique quest for the truth. Finding himself less seriously injured than he thought, he receives medical care and a night's rest at the home of the beautiful daughter of Lord Irmingham, a devotee of the late-Victorian cult of Tolstoyanism. Discovering that the prince had once met Anna Karenina, Lord Irmingham insists on having him as an honoured guest at his large country house, Stadleigh Court, among other guests assembled for a soiree devoted to celebrating Tolstoy's ideas. But there is an important sub-text to the occasion, as the prince soon discovers. He is invited to confront the veiled, reclusive lady in the tower. Is she Anna Karenina? Is she now apparently alive and well and living at Stadleigh Court on the banks of the river Wye? Entrusted with the task of identifying her, the prince finds himself drawn ever more deeply into a sympathetic understanding of her situation, her concern for her son, newly arrived from Russia but suddenly struck down, her joys and fears, above all her talk of threats and, finally, her claim to have "enemies". The soiree when it occurs proves to be fatally tragic. Her death overnight forces the prince to investigate. By dint of clever detective work and a certain amount of good luck he gradually uncovers the specifically Russian reasons for her killing. An Epilogue to what is an ingenious and entertaining crime novel reveals how much more the prince has to tell his wife when she returns from visiting her mother in Russia.

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Andrew Roberts's Masters and Commanders: The Military Geniuses who led the West to Victory in WWII tells the story of how four great leaders fought each other over how best to fight Hitler. During the Second World War the master strategy of the West was shaped by four titanic figures: Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, and their respective military commanders - General Sir Alan Brooke and General George C. Marshall. Each man was tough-willed and strong minded. And each was certain he knew best how to achieve victory. Drawing on previously unpublished material, including for the first time verbatim reports of Churchill's War Cabinet meetings, Andrew Roberts's acclaimed history recreates with vivid immediacy the fiery debates and political maneuverings, the rebuffs and the charm, the explosive rows and dramatic reconciliations, as the masters and commanders of the Western Alliance fought each other over the best way to fight Adolf Hitler. 'History as it should be written; a gripping narrative' Michael Gove, Mail on Sunday Books of the Year 'Scintillating historical writing on the whole rich panorama of Britain and the US at war' Martin Gilbert, Evening Standard 'A compelling analysis of American and British military strategy during the war. He also tells a profoundly human story' Laurence Rees, Sunday Times 'A masterpiece' Christopher Silvester, Daily Express 'Britain's finest contemporary military historian' Economist Books of the Year Andrew Roberts is a biographer and historian of international renown whose previous books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (1999), which won the Wolfson History Prize and the James Stern Silver Pen Award for Non-Fiction; Napoleon and Wellington (2001); Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership (2003), which coincided with four-part BBC2 history series, and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 (2005).

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For the first time, the full story of a crime that has haunted New England since 1873.The cold-blooded ax murder of two innocent Norwegian women at their island home off the coast of New Hampshire has gripped the region since 1873, beguiling tourists, inspiring artists, and fueling conspiracy theorists.The killer, a handsome Prussian fisherman down on his luck, was quickly captured, convicted in a widely publicized trial, and hanged in an unforgettable gallows spectacle. But he never confessed and, while in prison, gained a circle of admirers whose blind faith in his innocence still casts a shadow of doubt. A fictionalized bestselling novel and a Hollywood film have further clouded the truth.Finally a definitive "whydunnit" account of the Smuttynose Island ax murders has arrived. Popular historian J. Dennis Robinson fleshes out the facts surrounding this tragic robbery gone wrong in a captivating true crime page-turner. Robinson delves into the backstory at the rocky Isles of Shoals as an isolated centuries-old fishing village was being destroyed by a modern luxury hotel. He explores the neighboring island of Appledore where Victorian poet Celia Thaxter entertained the elite artists and writers of Boston. It was Thaxter's powerful essay about the murders in the Atlantic Monthly that shocked the American public.Robinson goes beyond the headlines of the burgeoning yellow press to explore the deeper lessons about American crime, justice, economics, and hero worship. Ten years before the Lizzie Borden ax murder trial and the fictional Sherlock Holmes, Americans met a sociopath named Louis Wagner—and many came to love him.

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A fascinating tale of seduction, murder, fraud, coercion—and the trial of the “Minneapolis Monster” On a winter night in 1894, a young woman’s body was found in the middle of a road near Lake Calhoun on the outskirts of Minneapolis. She had been shot through the head. The murder of Kittie Ging, a twenty-nine-year-old dressmaker, was the final act in a melodrama of seduction and betrayal, petty crimes and monstrous deeds that would obsess reporters and their readers across the nation when the man who likely arranged her killing came to trial the following spring. Shawn Francis Peters unravels that sordid, spellbinding story in his account of the trial of Harry Hayward, a serial seducer and schemer whom some deemed a “Svengali,” others a “Machiavelli,” and others a “lunatic” and “man without a soul.”Dubbed “one of the greatest criminals the world has ever seen” by the famed detective William Pinkerton, Harry Hayward was an inveterate and cunning plotter of crimes large and small, dabbling in arson, insurance fraud, counterfeiting, and illegal gambling. His life story, told in full for the first time here, takes us into shadowy corners of the nineteenth century, including mesmerism, psychopathy, spiritualism, yellow journalism, and capital punishment. From the horrible fate of an independent young businesswoman who challenged Victorian mores to the shocking confession of Hayward on the eve of his execution (which, if true, would have made him a serial killer), The Infamous Harry Hayward unfolds a transfixing tale of one of the most notorious criminals in America during the Gilded Age.

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How did Britain transform itself from a nation of workhouses to one that became a model for the modern welfare state? The Winding Road to the Welfare State investigates the evolution of living standards and welfare policies in Britain from the 1830s to 1950 and provides insights into how British working-class households coped with economic insecurity. George Boyer examines the retrenchment in Victorian poor relief, the Liberal Welfare Reforms, and the beginnings of the postwar welfare state, and he describes how workers altered spending and saving methods based on changing government policies.From the cutting back of the Poor Law after 1834 to Parliament’s abrupt about-face in 1906 with the adoption of the Liberal Welfare Reforms, Boyer offers new explanations for oscillations in Britain’s social policies and how these shaped worker well-being. The Poor Law’s increasing stinginess led skilled manual workers to adopt self-help strategies, but this was not a feasible option for low-skilled workers, many of whom continued to rely on the Poor Law into old age. In contrast, the Liberal Welfare Reforms were a major watershed, marking the end of seven decades of declining support for the needy. Concluding with the Beveridge Report and Labour’s social policies in the late 1940s, Boyer shows how the Liberal Welfare Reforms laid the foundations for a national social safety net.A sweeping look at economic pressures after the Industrial Revolution, The Winding Road to the Welfare State illustrates how British welfare policy waxed and waned over the course of a century.

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How did Britain transform itself from a nation of workhouses to one that became a model for the modern welfare state? The Winding Road to the Welfare State investigates the evolution of living standards and welfare policies in Britain from the 1830s to 1950 and provides insights into how British working-class households coped with economic insecurity. George Boyer examines the retrenchment in Victorian poor relief, the Liberal Welfare Reforms, and the beginnings of the postwar welfare state, and he describes how workers altered spending and saving methods based on changing government policies.From the cutting back of the Poor Law after 1834 to Parliament’s abrupt about-face in 1906 with the adoption of the Liberal Welfare Reforms, Boyer offers new explanations for oscillations in Britain’s social policies and how these shaped worker well-being. The Poor Law’s increasing stinginess led skilled manual workers to adopt self-help strategies, but this was not a feasible option for low-skilled workers, many of whom continued to rely on the Poor Law into old age. In contrast, the Liberal Welfare Reforms were a major watershed, marking the end of seven decades of declining support for the needy. Concluding with the Beveridge Report and Labour’s social policies in the late 1940s, Boyer shows how the Liberal Welfare Reforms laid the foundations for a national social safety net.A sweeping look at economic pressures after the Industrial Revolution, The Winding Road to the Welfare State illustrates how British welfare policy waxed and waned over the course of a century.

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As one of the world's foremost interior designers, Tricia Guild has a passionate belief that the way we choose to live has a significant impact on our well-being and happiness. The homes that we live in, the things that we surround ourselves with, and the everyday choices we make, can profoundly affect our outlook and positivity. It is no surprise, then, that Tricia practises what she preaches: she finds it impossible to separate her work as a designer from other aspects of her life, and she believes that, in seeking creative inspiration in each experience, especially in enjoying the things that bring pleasure to our lives, we can perfect the art of living. For Tricia, Italy is a particularly enduring passion: the culture, landscape, architecture, food and music all strike a creative chord. She has had a house there for many years. The last home was a rustic farmhouse, but when Tricia and her family began the search for a new property, she knew it would be decidedly different. In this new Italian home, Tricia found the perfect opportunity to create a contemporary interior reflecting a love of modernity and simplicity that has evolved over the years. In Tricia's view, modernity does not mean a lack of colour, pattern or texture; a contemporary interior can be both decorative and minimal - in fact, a confident use of colour and pattern can be the very thing that makes it even more wonderful. Here, working with the architect Stephen Marshall and the garden designer Arne Maynard, Tricia has created a special home - a contemporary interpretation of the local vernacular - that represents her kind of modern. In In My View, Tricia charts the creation of her stunning Italian home set amid verdant oil groves. We are taken on an extensive tour of the breathtaking property, right from the entrance steps and the rooms/spaces in the main house to the outdoor dining areas, studio, guest accommodation, kitchen garden and pool house. Stephen and Arne offer insight into their collaboration with Tricia, describing, among other things, the selection of materials - local stone, concrete, glass and galvanized metal - for the house, and the planting on the terraces and around the rolling lawns of the garden. Local artisans and craftspeople also played a crucial role in bringing this truly magnificent yet relaxing and comfortable home to life. Tricia also presents her new London home - a Victorian townhouse in a corner plot, where, with the same team of Stephen and Arne - she set about creating an urban retreat comprising three distinct areas to accommodate living, dining and resting. While life in Italy for Tricia is about seasonality and nature, her life in London is centred on her work at Designers Guild, the company she founded in 1970. Her London home therefore is, she says, `sharply experimental', her version of a lab, where she tests designs and assesses how colours work together. In this section of the book, Tricia provides a glimpse of working life and the design process at the company headquarters in west London. Throughout the book, Tricia shares the moodboards that helped her to realize her dream homes in Italy and London. For Tricia, moodboards are vital in the early stages of any project, large or small, because they help to stimulate the creative process, even define how one wishes to live, by establishing the language, rhythm and style of each space. The choices that one makes here, the process of selection and careful editing, lie at the heart of finding one's own style. In My View reveals the personal choices have shaped the way Tricia lives now, and will inspire the reader to develop their individual style and thus create their own special view.

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A study of the women who led the United States section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in the interwar years, this book argues that the ideas of these women—the importance of nurturing, nonviolence, feminism, and a careful balancing of people's differences with their common humanity—constitute an important addition to our understanding of the intellectual heritage of the United States. Most of these women were well educated and prominent in their chosen fields: they included Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch, the only two United States women to win Nobel Prizes for Peace; Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress; and Dorothy Detzer, the woman who prompted the investigation of the munitions industry in the 1930's. The ideas of these women were not usually expressed in forms conventionally studied by intellectual historians. On the whole, their ideas must be teased out of organizational records, statements of principle and policy, and personal correspondence. When combined with an understanding of the personal backgrounds of the WIL leaders and placed in the context of early-twentieth-century America, these documents tell us what these women thought was important and why. The ideas of the WIL leaders are also analyzed in the context of the intellectual themes of Victorianism and modernism. Our understanding of these themes has been based largely on the work of privileged European and American men, and the ideas of women often fit uncomfortably into these traditional categories. A reconstruction of the ideas of the WIL leaders suggests that historians have overlooked an important, alternative intellectual tradition in the United States. To understand and appreciate women's thoughts, we must dissolve the old constructs and let new, multifaceted ones replace them.

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A probing and holistic meditation on the key question: Why do we continue to make art, and thus beauty, out of war? Beautiful War: Studies in a Dreadful Fascination is a wide-ranging exploration of armed conflict as depicted in art that illustrates the constant presence of war in our everyday lives. Philip D. Beidler investigates the unending assimilation and pervasive presence of the idea of war in popular culture, the impulses behind the making of art out of war, and the unending and debatably aimless trajectories of war itself. Beidler's critical scope spans from Shakespeare's plays, through the Victorian battle paintings of Lady Butler, into the post–World War I writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf, and up to twenty-first-century films such as The Hurt Locker and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. As these works of art have become ubiquitous in contemporary culture, the many faces of war clearly spill over into our art and media, and Beidler argues that these portrayals in turn shift the perception of war from a savage truth to a concept. Beautiful War argues that the representation of war in the arts has always been, and continues to be, an incredibly powerful force. Incorporating painting, music, photography, literature, and film, Beidler traces a disturbing but fundamental truth: that war has always provided an aesthetic inspiration while serving ends as various and complex as ideological or geopolitical history, public memory, and mass entertainment.Beautiful War is a bold and vivid account of the role of war and military conflict as a subject of art that offers much of value to literary and cultural critics, historians, veterans, students of art history and communication studies, and those interested in expanding their understanding of art and media's influence on contemporary values and memories of the past.

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"This history will endure; not only because Sir Winston has written it, but also because of its own inherent virtues — its narrative power, its fine judgment of war and politics, of soldiers and statesmen, and even more because it reflects a tradition of what Englishmen in the hey-day of their empire thought and felt about their country's past." The Daily Telegraph Spanning four volumes and many centuries of history, from Caesar’s invasion of Britain to the start of World War I, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples stands as one of Winston Churchill’s most magnificent literary works. Begun during Churchill’s ‘wilderness years’ when he was out of government, first published in 1956 after his leadership through the darkest days of World War II had cemented his place in history and completed when Churchill was in his 80s, it remains to this day a compelling and vivid history. The Great Democracies is the fourth and final volume of Churchill’s history. Here, Churchill reaches the modern era. For Britain, this was the high Victorian era of Palmerston, Gladstone and Disraeli, an age of free trade and imperialism as the British spread to Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Meanwhile the fledgling republic in America endured the great crisis of the Civil War to take its first steps on the road to becoming the world superpower that endures to this day.

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Bishop John Medley was associated with a revolutionary group, the Oxford Movement (also called the Tractarians), in the Church of England that sought to return the church to its primitive and Catholic heritage. Part of this revolution was a rejection of the comfortable relationship between Church and State that had existed since the end of the seventeenth century. Equally suspect because of their perceived Roman Catholic leanings and the potential for disloyalty to the English Establishment, the Tractarians aroused strong feelings throughout Victorian English society. Medley was associated with the key figures of the movement and involved in many of the religious controversies of this turbulent time. In addition, he had the responsibility of maintaining the unity of an ideologically divided church in a colonial diocese. This book illuminates one part of the great societal change that occurred in thenineteenth century as the British Empire both reached its apex and began to be transformed into diverse independent political entities. The role of the church and religion in this imperial enterprise and in subsequent movements toward independence is central to an understanding of this process. As an experiment, W. E. Gladstone, sometime Prime MInister of England and keen churchman, arranged to appoint a member of the controversial Tractarian party to the Episcopal bench. Because such a move was politically and ecclesiastically dangerous in England, Medley was sent to the colonies. Intended to be a planter of British High Churchmanship in the soil of the new world, Medley became convincd over the course of his forty-seven-year episcopate that the American model of the church was more practical than the British. He eventually forged an identity for his diocese that was, in many ways, to be the pattern for the modern worldwide Anglican Church. He played a major role in developing a modern, pluralistic, Canadian civil society. By examining previously unpublished original source materials and by subjecting Medley's

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A small, hand-sized KJV Bible designed with clear Scripture text and elegant materials to honor God’s Word. This edition is published in large KJV Comfort Print type, which was designed exclusively for Thomas Nelson to be the most readable at any size. The KJV Compact Maclaren Series Bible is the perfect size to take with you wherever you go. Whether at home or on the go, this beautiful hand-sized edition of the Bible will keep you engaged in God’s Word.Enjoy the timeless King James Version in a traditional Scripture design formatted to help you quickly navigate through the Bible. The blue contrasting color for headings and verse numbers stand out while Thomas Nelson’s exclusive KJV Comfort Print® on quality Bible paper provides a smooth, thoroughly enjoyable reading experience. Features include: Classic 2-column verse-by-verse layout starts each verse on its own line so it’s easy to navigate the text Two double-faced satin ribbons help keep track of where you were reading Blue highlighted headings and book titles add an elegant touch to the text Premium Bible paper in opaque white creates a high contrast with the black text, improving readability Line matched text for optimal clarity on the page Words of Christ in black for a reading experience that is easy on your eyes throughout Scripture Ultra-flexible sewn binding lays flat in your hand or on your desk Clear and readable 7-point KJV Comfort Print About the Maclaren Series: Named for the noted Victorian-era preacher, Alexander Maclaren, this series of elegant Bibles feature regal blue highlights and verse numbers and clear, line-matched text.

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Bad food has a history. "Swindled" tells it. Through a fascinating mixture of cultural and scientific history, food politics, and culinary detective work, Bee Wilson uncovers the many ways swindlers have cheapened, falsified, and even poisoned our food throughout history. In the hands of people and corporations who have prized profits above the health of consumers, food and drink have been tampered with in often horrifying ways - padded, diluted, contaminated, substituted, mislabeled, misnamed, or otherwise faked. "Swindled" gives a panoramic view of this history, from the leaded wine of the ancient Romans to today's food frauds - such as fake organics and the scandal of Chinese babies being fed bogus milk powder.Wilson pays special attention to nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and England and their roles in developing both industrial-scale food adulteration and the scientific ability to combat it. As "Swindled" reveals, modern science has both helped and hindered food fraudsters - increasing the sophistication of scams but also the means to detect them. The big breakthrough came in Victorian England when a scientist first put food under the microscope and found that much of what was sold as 'genuine coffee' was anything but - and that you couldn't buy pure mustard in all of London. Arguing that industrialization, laissez-faire politics, and globalization have all hurt the quality of food, but also that food swindlers have always been helped by consumer ignorance, "Swindled" ultimately calls for both governments and individuals to be more vigilant. In fact, Wilson suggests, one of our best protections is simply to reeducate ourselves about the joys of food and cooking.

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Engaging account of the fortunes of a farming family during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Proputty, proputty, proputty: Tennyson's "Northern Farmer, New Style" could hear the word in the rhythm of his horse's hooves as he cantered between his fields. The Dixon family built up their estate in Holton-le-Moor, betweenMarket Rasen and Caistor, from a minor purchase in 1741 to the point where they owned the whole parish, with a fine house, a governess for their daughters, and a phaeton in which to ride out. But despite these marks of status, they remained working farmers well into the Victorian era. Even more remarkably, they created and preserved a comprehensive archive, including farming accounts, diaries and correspondence. Dr Richard Olney has known this archive for nearly fifty years, first uncovering the documentary riches at Holton Hall (where manuscripts from the loft had to be lowered in baskets to the study below) and subsequently cataloguing the entire collection in the LincolnshireArchives. In this book he creates a vivid portrait of the building up of a farming estate over several generations, revealing the introduction of agricultural improvements, the use of canals and, later, railways to access wider markets, and the place of "the middling sort" in nineteenth-century English rural society. Richard Olney was an archivist at the Lincolnshire Archives Office from 1969 to 1975, and an Assistant Keeper with the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts from 1976 to 2003. His publications include Lincolnshire Politics 1832-1885 (Oxford 1973) and Rural Society and County Government in Nineteenth-Century Lincolnshire (History of Lincolnshire Committee 1979).

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A new conversation is starting on this most universal of topics. But to know where we are heading, we need to know where we have come from...Death is the one subject we will all confront; it touches our families, our homes, our hearts. And yet we have grown used to denying its existence, treating it as an enemy to be beaten back with medical advances. What led us to this point - what drove us to sanitize death and make it foreign and unfamiliar? In Death's Summer Coat Brandy Schillace explores our past to examine what it might mean for our future. From Victorian Britain to contemporary Cambodia, forgotten customs and modern-day rituals, we learn about the incredibly diverse - and sometimes just incredible - ways in which humans have dealt with mortality in different times and places. Today, as we begin to talk about mortality, there are difficult questions to face. What does it mean to have a 'good death'? What should a funeral do? As Schillace shows, talking about death and the rituals associated with it can help to provide answers. It also brings us closer together. And conversation and community are just as important for living as for dying.Some of the stories are strikingly unfamiliar; others are far more familiar than you might suppose. But all reveal a lot about the present - and about ourselves. It's time to meet the new (old) death. As seen reviewed in The Guardian in the article Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty review - startling stories from the crematorium. If you are keen to learn more, you can listen to the interview with Brandy Schillace on Radio Gorgeous or the interview on BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed, both to be aired in May 2015.

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A study of the controversy-filled scholarship on Poe from the time of his death to the present. Controversies abound in studies of Edgar Allan Poe. From the time of his death well into the twentieth century, partisans debated the issue of his character: was he an alcoholic? drug addict? pathological liar? necrophile? In the1920s and 30s, psychoanalytic critics sought to divorce the study of Poe from Victorian moral concerns but in the process made scandalous claims by linking Poe's dream-like stories to his personality. The status of Poe's literaryproductions was similarly disputed; dismissed by the New Critics but championed by poets such as William Carlos Williams and Allen Tate. Recent scholars have debated the meaning and significance of Poe's representations of race, class, and gender, often returning to the character issue: how racist and misogynist was he, and how important are those questions to understanding his work? Finally, how have the seemingly countless plays, films, novels, comic books, and pop music experiments based on his image and works intertwined with academic study of Poe? This book examines these and other controversies, shedding light on broader issues of canon formation, the role of biography in literary study, and the importance of integrating various, even conflicting interpretations into one's own reading of a literary work. This book will be of great interest to Poe scholars, both those who have been a part of the literary battles described above and newcomers to the field who can use the book as a guide to the field of Poe studies, and to all those interested in Poe and his work. Scott Peeples is Associate Professor of English at theCollege of Charleston.

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From Tudor oyster pedlars and Victorian pie and mash shops, to the supper clubs and street food scene flourishing today, Britain's capital has always been a tantalising draw for those who live to eat. In Made in London, Londoner Leah Hyslop offers a joyful celebration of the city and its food, past and present. The book features recipes invented in the city; such as the 18th century treat Chelsea buns (a favourite of King George II) and Omelette Arnold Bennett, created for the famous writer while staying at the Savoy Hotel. Alongside these are new, exciting dishes, inspired by the Leah’s eating adventures around the capital: such as a mouthwatering Pimm’s and lemon curd trifle, an unusual goat’s cheese and cherry tart and an easy twist on Indian restaurant Dishoom’s iconic bacon naan, one of the best brunches in London. Interspersed with the recipes are short, entertaining histories and profiles about London’s food scene, including the tale of the 18th century 'gin craze'; a profile of the East End’s most beloved greasy spoon; and why Scotch eggs might have actually been invented in a London department store! Short shopping guides, lifting the lid on such pressing gastronomic questions as where to buy cheese, the city's most delicious chocolate shops, or the best cocktail bars for a nightcap (or two…) are also featured. Beautifully illustrated with contemporary photographs of London, alongside vintage images sourced from historic archives, this is a book for anyone who has ever lived in, visited or simply dreamt of sipping a cocktail while watching red buses trundle by in the world's greatest city.

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En-Gendering India offers an innovative interpretation of the role that gender played in defining the Indian state during both the colonial and postcolonial eras. Focusing on both British and Indian literary texts—primarily novels—produced between 1857 and 1947, Sangeeta Ray examines representations of "native" Indian women and shows how these representations were deployed to advance notions of Indian self-rule as well as to defend British imperialism.Through her readings of works by writers including Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Harriet Martineau, Flora Annie Steel, Anita Desai, and Bapsi Sidhaa, Ray demonstrates that Indian women were presented as upper class and Hindu, an idealization that paradoxically served the needs of both colonial and nationalist discourses. The Indian nation’s goal of self-rule was expected to enable women’s full participation in private and public life. On the other hand, British colonial officials rendered themselves the protectors of passive Indian women against their “savage” male countrymen. Ray shows how the native woman thus became a symbol for both an incipient Indian nation and a fading British Empire. In addition, she reveals how the figure of the upper-class Hindu woman created divisions with the nationalist movement itself by underscoring caste, communal, and religious differences within the newly emerging state. As such, Ray’s study has important implications for discussions about nationalism, particularly those that address the concepts of identity and nationalism.Building on recent scholarship in feminism and postcolonial studies, En-Gendering India will be of interest to scholars in those fields as well as to specialists in nationalism and nation-building and in Victorian, colonial, and postcolonial literature and culture.

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Why should Salman Rushdie describe his truth telling as an act of swallowing impure “haram” flesh from which the blood has not been drained? Why should Rudyard Kipling cast Kim, the imperial child–agent, as a body/text written upon and damaged by empire? Why should E. M. Forster evoke through the Indian landscape the otherwise unspeakable racial or homosexual body in his writing? In Making Words Matter: The Agency of Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, Ambreen Hai argues that these writers focus self–reflectively on the unstable capacity of words to have material effects and to be censored, and that this central concern with literary agency is embedded in, indeed definitive of, colonial and postcolonial literature. Making Words Matter contends that the figure of the human body is central to the self–imagining of the text in the world because the body uniquely concretizes three dimensions of agency: it is at once the site of autonomy, instrumentality, and subjection. Hai’s work exemplifies a new trend in postcolonial studies: to combine aesthetics and politics and to offer a historically and theoretically informed mode of interpretation that is sophisticated, lucid, and accessible. This is the first study to identify and examine the rich convergence of issues and to chart their dynamic. Hai opens up the field of postcolonial literary studies to fresh questions, engaging knowledgeably with earlier scholarship and drawing on interdisciplinary theory to read both well known and lesser–known texts in a new light. It should be of interest internationally to students and scholars in a variety of fields including British, Victorian, modernist, colonial, or postcolonial literary studies, queer or cultural studies, South Asian studies, history, and anthropology.

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The nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented increase in art forgery, caused both by the advent of national museums and by a rapidly growing bourgeois interest in collecting objects from the past. This rise had profound repercussions on notions of selfhood and national identity within and outside the realm of art. Although art critics denounced forgery for its affront to artistic traditions, they were fascinated by its power to shape the human and object worlds and adopted a language of art forgery to articulate a link between the making of fakes and the making of selves. The Deceivers explores the intersections among artistic crime, literary narrative, and the definition of identity. Literary texts joined more specialized artistic discourses in describing the various identities associated with art forgery: the forger, the copyist, the art expert, the dealer, the restorer. Built into new characters were assumptions about gender, sexuality, race, and nationality that themselves would come to be presented in a language of artistic authenticity. Aviva Briefel places special emphasis on the gendered distinction between male forgers and female copyists. "Copying," a benign occupation when undertaken by a woman, became "forgery," laden with criminal intent, when performed by men. Those who could successfully produce, handle, or detect spurious things and selves were distinguished from others who were incapable of distinguishing the authentic from the artistic and human forgeries. Through close reading of literary narratives such as Trilby and The Marble Faun as well as newspaper accounts of forgery scandals, The Deceivers reveals the identities—both authentic and fake—that emerged from the Victorian culture of forgery.

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A history of the extraordinary society that has touched all aspects of British lifeFrom its beginnings in a coffee house in the mid-eighteenth century, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has tried to improve British life in every way imaginable. It has sought to influence how Britons work, how they are educated, the music they listen to, the food they eat, the items in their homes, and even how they remember their own history. Arts and Minds is the remarkable story of an institution unlike any other—a society for the improvement of everything and anything.Drawing on exclusive access to a wealth of rare papers and artefacts from the Society's own archives, Anton Howes shows how this vibrant and singularly ambitious organisation has evolved and adapted, constantly having to reinvent itself to keep in step with changing times. The Society has served as a platform for Victorian utilitarian reformers, purchased and restored an entire village, encouraged the planting of more than sixty million trees, and sought technological alternatives to child labour. But this is more than just a story about unusual public initiatives. It is an engaging and authoritative history of almost three centuries of social reform and competing visions of a better world—the Society's members have been drawn from across the political spectrum, including Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and Karl Marx.Informative and entertaining, Arts and Minds reveals how a society of public-spirited individuals tried to make their country a better place, and draws vital lessons from their triumphs and failures for all would-be reformers today.

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During their lifetimes, Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin shared credit and fame for the independent and near-simultaneous discovery of natural selection. Together, the two men spearheaded one of the greatest intellectual revolutions in modern history, and their rivalry, usually amicable but occasionally acrimonious, forged modern evolutionary theory. Yet today, few people today know much about Wallace. The Heretic in Darwin's Court explores the controversial life and scientific contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace-Victorian traveler, scientist, spiritualist, and co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of natural selection. After examining his early years, the biography turns to Wallace's twelve years of often harrowing travels in the western and eastern tropics, which place him in the pantheon of the greatest explorer-naturalists of the nineteenth century. Tracing step-by-step his discovery of natural selection-a piece of scientific detective work as revolutionary in its implications as the discovery of the structure of DNA-the book then follows the remaining fifty years of Wallace's eccentric and entertaining life. In addition to his divergence from Darwin on two fundamental issues-sexual selection and the origin of the human mind-he pursued topics that most scientific figures of his day conspicuously avoided, including spiritualism, phrenology, mesmerism, environmentalism, and life on Mars. Although there may be disagreement about his conclusions, Wallace's intellectual investigations into the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe itself remain some of the most inspired scientific accomplishments in history. This authoritative biography casts new light on the life and work of Alfred Russel Wallace and the importance of his twenty-five-year relationship with Charles Darwin.

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What would you do if you could reinvent your home? A link to the garden, to bring nature closer. A re-thought layout, that complements your lifestyle. A greener home, for a sustainable future (and lower energy bills). More space. Better space. You probably know what is wrong with your house, but do you really know what would improve it? Architects do. Even better, they can design a home that works for you, with ideas and solutions that you may not yet have considered. This stunningly illustrated book showcases the best examples of what can be achieved when homeowners collaborate with RIBA-certified architects to realise their House Goals. Sorted by motivation, it breaks down how architects can address these universal problems in unique, bespoke ways that suit their clients, while providing inspiration for your own home. Crucially, House Goals fully explains the process of working with architects – from first contact to completion – to ensure you know exactly what you’re getting into, and how to make the most of it. Features: Examples of projects in Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, inter-war and post-war homes. A range of scales, from one-bed flats and split-level maisonettes to two-up, two-down terraces and cosy cottages, elegant town houses and detached homes as well as interesting conversions and garden rooms. Rural and urban locations ranging from hamlets to big cities, covering: London, Norfolk, Cheshire, Sussex, Herefordshire, Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and more. Work from more than 30 architects, including: Arboreal Architecture, Bradley Van der Straeten Architects, Gagarin Studio, IF_DO, Knox Bhavan and nimtim architects. With a foreword by Kevin McCloud.

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'I read the book with enormous appreciation. Tessa Boase brings all these long-ago housekeepers so movingly to life and her excitement in the research is palpable.' Fay Weldon: Novelist, playwright – and housekeeper's daughter Revelatory, gripping and unexpectedly poignant, this is the story of the invisible women who ran the English country house. Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious jobs a nineteenth and early twentieth century woman could want – and also one of the toughest. A far cry from the Downton Abbey fiction, the real life Mrs Hughes was up against capricious mistresses, low pay, no job security and gruelling physical labour. Until now, her story has never been told. Revealing the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women’s careers, and delving into secret diaries, unpublished letters and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain’s most prominent households. From Dorothy Doar, Regency housekeeper for the obscenely wealthy 1st Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, to Sarah Wells, a deaf and elderly Victorian in charge of Uppark, West Sussex. From Ellen Penketh, Edwardian cook-housekeeper at the sociable but impecunious Erddig Hall in the Welsh borders to Hannah Mackenzie who runs Wrest Park in Bedfordshire – Britain’s first country-house war hospital, bankrolled by playwright J. M. Barrie. And finally Grace Higgens, cook-housekeeper to the Bloomsbury set at Charleston farmhouse in East Sussex for half a century – an era defined by the Second World War.Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-GBX-NONEX-NONE

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Buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of the small village of Benson in Oxfordshire lies the body of a footballing world champion from a bygone era shrouded in the mists of time. His name was Stephen Smith. This footballer of the Victorian and Edwardian era could claim as many league title winning medals as John Terry and Wayne Rooney, more league winners medals than Eric Cantona, Frank Lampard, Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and Alan Shearer. This book is the never before told story of a footballer born at the end of the Industrial Revolution, son of agricultural labourers who became a miner, working underground combining that job with one as a professional footballer to rise to the top of the footballing world. Smith won trophy after trophy in the best and only professional league anywhere in the world at that time. He also scored the goal that made England World Champions in 1895. Smith, at the top of his game in a move that mirrored the Premier League breakaway of 1992 and the recent ill-fated European Super League then joined the newly formed Southern League at a time when the Football League started to cap player wages. He did this in order to ensure his family's future as well as end his reliance on his part-time earnings from mining. Football's zeitgeist has fundamentally changed very little in the last 130 years for those inside the industry. This is the story of Stephen Smith and the quest to find the support and funds to mark and commemorate one of the most decorated yet underappreciated footballers in the history of the game.

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Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Victorian icon, engineer, artist, architect, designer and visionary, entrepreneur and celebrity. His astounding feats changed the British landscape, and this new book tells the story of his awe-inspiring achievements and innovations as a railway engineer. New to the developing world of railways in the early 1830s, Brunel soon came to rival George and Robert Stephenson, as he embarked on what he called ‘the finest work in England’. The construction of the Great Western Railway, arguably the most revolutionary of British railways, opened in 1841. Tim Bryan, Director of the Brunel Institute at the SS Great Britain, chronicles how, in almost thirty tumultuous years, Brunel created a rail network covering much of the South and West of England, the Midlands and Wales. The network included masterpieces like Paddington Station and the Royal Albert Bridge and still carries millions of travellers today. The book also describes how Brunel’s successes were matched by ‘monumental failures’ – the ill-fated atmospheric system used on the South Devon Railway, and the far-reaching implications of the broad gauge for his railways, which ultimately cost millions of pounds when abolished. Iron, Stone and Steam is also the story of the great engineer’s complex character and the roles of the people who helped the creative, and sometimes dictatorial, genius create his railway. These range from the navvies who built his bridges, tunnels and lines, to contemporaries like Daniel Gooch, without whom his vision would never have been fully realised. Above all, this is the story of Brunel’s vision to create a railway empire like no other.

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**Shortlisted for the 2018 General Outstanding Sports Book of the Year**One of the founder members in 1895 of what became the Rugby League, Batley was once a thriving centre of commerce, one of the bustling mill towns in the Heavy Woollen District of West Yorkshire. More than 120 years on, times have changed, even if the town's Victorian buildings remain, but one constant is the importance of the club as the centre of the community. And in 2016, the Batley Bulldogs brought more than their fair share of pride to the town. They were Underdogs, but gave their professional Super League rivals a run for their money in a season that surpassed all expectations.Given unprecedented access to the team - players, staff and fans - Tony Hannan charts a fascinating year in the life of a lower-league club, of labourers spilling blood and guts on to Batley's notorious sloping pitch before getting bruised bodies up for work on a Monday morning, of hand-to-mouth existence at the unglamorous and gritty end of British sport. And at their centre is the Bulldogs captain Keegan Hirst, the first rugby league player to come out as gay, and inspirational coach John Kear, just two men in the most colourful cast of characters. It was also a year when the town was plunged into tragedy by the brutal murder of local MP Jo Cox, a great supporter of the club.Underdogs is more than just a book about Batley though. It is the story of northern working-class culture, past and present, and a report from the front-line of a society struggling to find its identity in a changing world.

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Plants have profoundly moulded the Earth's climate and the evolutionary trajectory of life. Far from being 'silent witnesses to the passage of time', plants are dynamic components of our world, shaping the environment throughout history as much as that environment has shaped them. In The Emerald Planet, David Beerling puts plants centre stage, revealing the crucial role they have played in driving global changes in the environment, in recording hidden facets of Earth's history, and in helping us to predict its future. His account draws together evidence from fossil plants, from experiments with their living counterparts, and from computer models of the 'Earth System', to illuminate the history of our planet and its biodiversity. This new approach reveals how plummeting carbon dioxide levels removed a barrier to the evolution of the leaf; how plants played a starring role in pushing oxygen levels upwards, allowing spectacular giant insects to thrive in the Carboniferous; and it strengthens fascinating and contentious fossil evidence for an ancient hole in the ozone layer. Along the way, Beerling introduces a lively cast of pioneering scientists from Victorian times onwards whose discoveries provided the crucial background to these and the other puzzles. This understanding of our planet's past sheds a sobering light on our own climate-changing activities, and offers clues to what our climatic and ecological futures might look like. There could be no more important time to take a close look at plants, and to understand the history of the world through the stories they tell. Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.

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An affectionate but meticulously researched history of one of the most beautiful and best-loved corners of England – Crosthwaite Parish, nestling deep within the mountains and valleys of the Lake District. 'A unique contribution to English history' Hunter Davies 'A delightful, refreshingly written book, attentive to social detail and telling the only story that matters – history' Simon Jenkins 'A wonderful book' Margaret Drabble 'A completely fresh perspective on the Lakes and Lake Poets... I hugely enjoyed it' Andrew Marr Bounded by the peaks of Scafell, Skiddaw and Helvellyn, and embracing such well-known landmarks as Borrowdale, Derwentwater and Keswick, it lies within the heart of the Lake Poets' landscape and its rugged terrain excites passion in all those who know it. The Parish also boasts a remarkable history. Its 90 square miles were governed, from medieval times, by eighteen annually chosen 'customary tenants'; ancestors of the people who later prompted Wordsworth's portrayal of the area as 'a perfect Republic of Shepherds and agriculturalists'. His fellow poet Robert Southey lived within the Parish for forty years, was an active parishioner and rests in St Kentigern's churchyard. Here he is given his rightful position as a Lake Poet. In the nineteenth century, the Victorian state killed off the old parish system, sweeping away the egalitarian rule of the Eighteen Men. But a degree of redemption was at hand. Canon Rawnsley, vicar of Crosthwaite from 1883, pledged to defend the Lake District for future generations. So the Parish was at the heart of the creation of the National Trust and blazed a trail for a wider movement to preserve the English landscape. Writing with a historian's rigour and bearing aloft the banner of the Lake District statesmen, Philippa Harrison has produced a magisterial and fascinating record of a parish with a unique social, cultural and aesthetic resonance in English history.

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Winner: AAIS First Book Prize Old Schools marks out a modernist countertradition. The book makes sense of an apparent anachronism in twentieth-century literature and cinema: a fascination with outmoded, paradigmatically pre-modern educational forms that persists long after they are displaced in progressive pedagogical theories. Advocates of progressive education turned against Latin in particular. The dead language—taught through time-tested means including memorization, recitation, copying out, and other forms of repetition and recall—needed to be updated or eliminated, reformers argued, so that students could breathe free and become modern, achieving a break with convention and constraint. Yet McGlazer’s remarkable book reminds us that progressive education was championed not only by political progressives, but also by Fascists in Italy, where it was an object of Gramsci’s critique. Building on Gramsci’s pages on the Latin class, McGlazer shows how figures in various cultural vanguards, from Victorian Britain to 1970s Brazil, returned to and reimagined the old school. Strikingly, the works that McGlazer considers valorize this school’s outmoded techniques even at their most cumbersome and conventional. Like the Latin class to which they return, these works produce constraints that feel limiting but that, by virtue of that limitation, invite valuable resistance. As they turn grammar drills into verse and repetitious lectures into voiceovers, they find unlikely resources for critique in the very practices that progressive reformers sought to clear away. Registering the past’s persistence even while they respond to the mounting pressures of modernization, writers and filmmakers from Pater to Joyce to Pasolini retain what might look like retrograde attachments—to tradition, transmission, scholastic rites, and repetitive forms. But the counter-progressive pedagogies that they devise repeat the past to increasingly radical effect. Old Schools teaches us that this kind of repetition can enable the change that it might seem to impede.

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Magnificent history of the common British soldier from 1700 to 1900 by one of Britain’s best-known and accomplished military writers and broadcasters. Red Coat is non-fiction Sharpe, filled with anecdote and humour as well as historical analysis. ‘Redcoat is a wonderful book. It is not just a work of history – but one of enthusiasm and unparalleled knowledge.' BERNARD CORNWELL Redcoat is the story of the British soldier from c.1760 until c.1860 – surely one of the most enduring and magnetic subjects of the British past. Solidly based on the letters and diaries of the men who served and the women who followed them, the book is rich in the history of the period. It charts Wolfe's victory and death at Quebec, the American War of Independence, the Duke of York's campaign in Flanders, Wellington's Peninsular War, Waterloo,the retreat from Kabul, the Sikh wars in 1845-9, the Crimean war and the Indian Mutiny.The focus of Redcoat, however, is the individual recollection and experience of the ordinary soldiers serving in the wars fought by Georgian and early Victorian England.Through their stories and anecdotes – of uniforms, equipment,'taking the King's shilling', flogging, wounds, food, barrack life, courage, comradeship, death, love and loss – Richard Holmes provides a comprehensive portrait of a fallible but extraordinarily successful fighting force. 'Such a scene of mortal strife from the fire of fifty men was never witnessed…' writes Harry Smith of the 95th Rifles, recounting the death of a brother officer in Spain in 1813. 'I wept over his remains with a bursting heart as, with his company who adored him, I consigned to the grave the last external appearance of Daniel Cadoux. His fame can never die.' Smith's account is typical of the emotions and experiences of the men who appear on every page of this book, sporting their red uniforms to fight for King and country.

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Ride away on a 'round-the-world adventure of a lifetime—with only a change of clothes and a pearl-handled revolver—in this trascendent novel inspired by the life of Annie Londonderry.“Bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”—Susan B. Anthony Who was Annie Londonderry? She captured the popular imagination with her daring ‘round the world trip on two wheels. It was, declared The New York World in October of 1895, “the most extraordinary journey ever undertaken by a woman.” But beyond the headlines, Londonderry was really Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, a young, Jewish mother of three small children, who climbed onto a 42-pound Columbia bicycle and pedaled away into history. Reportedly set in motion by a wager between two wealthy Boston merchants, the bet required Annie not only to circle the earth by bicycle in 15 months, but to earn $5,000 en route, as well. This was no mere test of a woman’s physical endurance and mental fortitude; it was a test of a woman’s ability to fend for herself in the world. Often attired in a man’s riding suit, Annie turned every Victorian notion of female propriety on its head. Not only did she abandon, temporarily, her role of wife and mother (scandalous in the 1890s), she earned her way selling photographs of herself, appearing as an attraction in stores, and by turning herself into a mobile billboard. Zheutlin, a descendent of Annie, brilliantly probes the inner life and seeming boundless courage of this outlandish, brash, and charismatic woman. In a time when women could not vote and few worked outside the home, Annie was a master of public relations, a consummate self-promoter, and a skillful creator of her own myth. Yet, for more than a century her remarkable story was lost to history. In SPIN, this remarkable heroine and her marvelous, stranger-than-fiction story is vividly brought to life for a new generation.

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This is the story of those who ended up on the end of the hangman’s rope at Norwich Castle Prison, Norwich City Prison on Earlham Road and the later Victorian Norwich Prison on Knox Road. The executions included in this book range from some of the earliest recorded in the county during the thirteenth century, then down the years including two gallows survivors and the execution of Kett and many of his rebels in 1549, to the last execution conducted in the county in 1951, when two young men went to the gallows for separate incidents but having committed the same crime — they both murdered their pregnant sweethearts. Recorded here are executions for a host of forgotten cases and a cornucopia of crimes as diverse as highway robbery, housebreaking, riot, arson and theft of livestock. Norwich was the location for the hangings of such notorious criminals as Frances Billing and Catherine Frary ‘The Burnham Poisoners’ — the last public double execution and last women to hang in the county; James Blomfield Rush, the Stanfield Hall Murderer; William Sheward, the murderer who confessed almost eighteen years after the murder and dismemberment of his wife; and Herbert Bennett, the Yarmouth Bootlace Murderer who may, or may not, have been guilty of his crime. Norwich Castle Prison was also the scene of one of the most infamous incidents in the history of British hangings and recalled with trepidation by all executioners who came after as ‘The Goodale Mess’.

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This magisterial work links the literary and intellectual history of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Britain's overseas colonies during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to redraw our picture of the origins of cultural nationalism, the lineages of the novel, and the literary history of the English-speaking world. Katie Trumpener recovers and recontextualizes a vast body of fiction to describe the history of the novel during a period of formal experimentation and political engagement, between its eighteenth-century "rise" and its Victorian "heyday." During the late eighteenth century, antiquaries in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales answered modernization and anglicization initiatives with nationalist arguments for cultural preservation. Responding in particular to Enlightenment dismissals of Gaelic oral traditions, they reconceived national and literary history under the sign of the bard. Their pathbreaking models of national and literary history, their new way of reading national landscapes, and their debates about tradition and cultural transmission shaped a succession of new novelistic genres, from Gothic and sentimental fiction to the national tale and the historical novel. In Ireland and Scotland, these genres were used to mount nationalist arguments for cultural specificity and against "internal colonization." Yet once exported throughout the nascent British empire, they also formed the basis of the first colonial fiction of Canada, Australia, and British India, used not only to attack imperialism but to justify the imperial project. Literary forms intended to shore up national memory paradoxically become the means of buttressing imperial ideology and enforcing imperial amnesia.

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Traditional postcolonial scholarship on art and imperialism emphasises tensions between colonising cores and subjugated peripheries. The ties between London and British white settler colonies have been comparatively neglected. Artworks not only reveal the controlling intentions of imperialist artists in their creation but also the uses to which they were put by others in their afterlives. In many cases they were used to fuel contests over cultural identity which expose a mixture of rifts and consensuses within the British ranks which were frequently assumed to be homogeneous. British Art for Australia, 1860–1953: The Acquisition of Artworks from the United Kingdom by Australian National Galleries represents the first systematic and comparative study of collecting British art in Australia between 1860 and 1953 using the archives of the Australian national galleries and other key Australian and UK institutions. Multiple audiences in the disciplines of art history, cultural history, and museology are addressed by analysing how Australians used British art to carve a distinct identity, which artworks were desirable, economically attainable, and why, and how the acquisition of British art fits into a broader cultural context of the British world.It considers the often competing roles of the British Old Masters (e.g. Romney and Constable), Victorian (e.g. Madox Brown and Millais), and modern artists (e.g. Nash and Spencer) alongside political and economic factors, including the developing global art market, imperial commerce, Australian Federation, the First World War, and the coming of age of the Commonwealth.

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In 1980 Cathy N. Davidson traveled to Japan to teach English at a leading all-women’s university. It was the first of many journeys and the beginning of a deep and abiding fascination. In this extraordinary book, Davidson depicts a series of intimate moments and small epiphanies that together make up a panoramic view of Japan. With wit, candor, and a lover’s keen eye, she tells captivating stories—from that of a Buddhist funeral laden with ritual to an exhilarating evening spent touring the “Floating World,” the sensual demimonde in which salaryman meets geisha and the normal rules are suspended. On a remote island inhabited by one of the last matriarchal societies in the world, a disconcertingly down-to-earth priestess leads her to the heart of a sacred grove. And she spends a few unforgettable weeks in a quasi-Victorian residence called the Practice House, where, until recently, Japanese women were taught American customs so that they would make proper wives for husbands who might be stationed abroad. In an afterword new to this edition, Davidson tells of a poignant trip back to Japan in 2005 to visit friends who had remade their lives after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, which had devastated the city of Kobe, as well as the small town where Davidson had lived and the university where she taught.36 Views of Mount Fuji not only transforms our image of Japan, it offers a stirring look at the very nature of culture and identity. Often funny, sometimes liltingly sad, it is as intimate and irresistible as a long-awaited letter from a good friend.

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Few institutions were as central to nineteenth-century American culture as the home. Emerging in the 1820s as a sentimental space apart from the public world of commerce and politics, the Victorian home transcended its initial association with the private lives of the white, native-born bourgeoisie to cross lines of race, ethnicity, class, and region. Throughout the nineteenth century, home was celebrated as a moral force, domesticity moved freely into the worlds of politics and reform, and home and marketplace repeatedly remade each other. At Home in Nineteenth-Century America draws upon advice manuals, architectural designs, personal accounts, popular fiction, advertising images, and reform literature to revisit the variety of places Americans called home. Entering into middle-class suburban houses, slave cabins, working-class tenements, frontier dugouts, urban settlement houses, it explores the shifting interpretations and experiences of these spaces from within and without. Nineteenth-century homes and notions of domesticity seem simultaneously distant and familiar. This sense of surprise and recognition is ideal for the study of history, preparing us to view the past with curiosity and empathy, inspiring comparisons to the spaces we inhabit today—malls, movie theaters, city streets, and college campuses. Permitting us to listen closely to the nineteenth century’s sweeping conversation about home in its various guises, At Home in Nineteenth-Century America encourages us to hear our contemporary conversation about the significance and meaning of home anew while appreciating the lingering imprint of past ideals. Instructor's Guide

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A major new biography of the brilliant naturalist, traveler, humanitarian, and codiscoverer of natural selectionAlfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was perhaps the most famed naturalist of the Victorian age. His expeditions to remote Amazonia and southeast Asia were the stuff of legend. A collector of thousands of species new to science, he shared in the discovery of natural selection and founded the discipline of evolutionary biogeography.Radical by Nature tells the story of Wallace’s epic life and achievements, from his stellar rise from humble origins to his complicated friendship with Charles Darwin and other leading scientific lights of Britain to his devotion to social causes and movements that threatened to alienate him from scientific society.James Costa draws on letters, notebooks, and journals to provide a multifaceted account of a revolutionary life in science as well as Wallace’s family life. He shows how the self-taught Wallace doggedly pursued bold, even radical ideas that caused a seismic shift in the natural sciences, and how he also courted controversy with nonscientific pursuits such as spiritualism and socialism. Costa describes Wallace’s courageous social advocacy of women’s rights, labor reform, and other important issues. He also sheds light on Wallace’s complex relationship with Darwin, describing how Wallace graciously applauded his friend and rival, becoming one of his most ardent defenders.Weaving a revelatory narrative with the latest scholarship, Radical by Nature paints a mesmerizing portrait of a multifaceted thinker driven by a singular passion for science, a commitment to social justice, and a lifelong sense of wonder.

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Standing in stark contrast to the conservative churchmen of Victorian Britain, the Anglican clergyman Stewart Headlam was a passionately progressive reformer, a champion of the working poor--especially women --a defender of the music hall performers his colleagues attacked as licentious, and, in short, a man of God who remained firmly and controversially engaged with the society in which he lived and worked. This book, the first significant study of Headlam since 1928, paints a rich and complex picture of this larger-than-life man of the cloth, charting the trail he blazed across the social, political, and religious landscape of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Dissatisfied from an early age with his family’s Evangelical faith, Headlam became an Anglican curate, but his political views were increasingly radicalized as he befriended working-class atheists and trade union leaders. John Richard Orens details Headlam’s repeated conflicts with the establishment figures of his faith over his defense of music hall ballet performers’ right to reveal their legs, his role in the early years of the Fabian Society, his anti-puritanism, and his passionate socialism. Headlam was even instrumental in having Oscar Wilde bailed out of prison following the writer’s arrest for “homosexual offenses.” With this intellectual biography, Orens places Headlam’s life, beliefs, and actions in the context of the period, contributing to the ongoing debate about the proper relationship between Christianity, on the one hand, and society, sexuality, and the arts, on the other.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE STELLA PRIZE 2018Highly Commended in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2017Shortlisted for the ABIA Matt Richell Award for New Writers 2018Shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for a Science Fiction Novel 2017Longlisted for the Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction 2018Nominated for Ditmar Award Best New Talent 2018'Artfully combining elements of literary, historical, and speculative fiction, this allegorical novel is surprising and unforgettable' - starred review, Publishers Weekly'The truth that lies at the heart of this novel is impossible to ignore.' - Books+Publishing'a skilfully constructed pastiche of colonisation, resistance and apocalyptic chaos with parallels that sit unsettlingly close to home' - The Big IssueJacky was running. There was no thought in his head, only an intense drive to run. There was no sense he was getting anywhere, no plan, no destination, no future. All he had was a sense of what was behind, what he was running from. Jacky was running.The Natives of the Colony are restless. The Settlers are eager to have a nation of peace, and to bring the savages into line. Families are torn apart, reeducation is enforced. This rich land will provide for all.This is not Australia as we know it. This is not the Australia of our history. This TERRA NULLIUS is something new, but all too familiar. An incredible debut from a striking new Australian Aboriginal voice.'A delightfully duplicitous noodle-bender that flips the script on the Indigenous Australian survival narrative.' - Kirkus Reviews

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The complete works of Joseph Butler, newly edited, with an introduction, notes, glossary, and an analytic index. This edition of Bishop Joseph Butler's [1692-1752] complete works is the first newly edited version to appear in a century, and is the only one to include a single, analytic index to the whole works. The editor's introduction presents Butler's ethics and philosophy of religion as a single, comprehensive system of pastoral philosophy and surveys the vast influence Butler exerted, especially in the nineteenth century. Included here are all fifteen published sermons from Butler's tenure as Preacher at the Rolls Chapel, the only sermons in English routinely studied by secular ethicists to this day; six additional sermons on the great public institutions; his Charge to the Clergy at Durham, controversial in its day for its defense of external religion; his youthful letters sent anonymously to Samuel Clarke, and the complete text of his Analogy of Religion, an apologetic tour de force, including the famous introduction on probability as the guide to life, the analogical defense of immortality, free will and the moral order of nature, as well as his famous rebuttal of deism and his dissertations on virtue and on personal identify. Butler's work is among the monuments of classical Anglican theology. He is a major source for work in ethical theory and philosophy of religion, as well as for the background of Victorian literature. David E. White teaches philosophy at St. John Fisher College and is an officer in the New York State Philosophical Association.

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In days of old, Christmas was defined by the custom of exchanging simple handmade gifts. Today, it has become a multi-billion industry, synonymous with commercialism and consumption. How did this transformation occur? In this incisive and engaging examination of how Christmas has evolved since 1880, Waits chronicles the history of the holiday, from its origin to its current form. The book is illustrated with dozens of historical photographs and will be of interest to cultural and social historians alike. Christmas was a relatively modest occasion in the English- speaking world, celebrated by the exchange of modest handmade gifts, until the Victorians invested the holiday with immense significance as part of a larger effort to celebrate home, family, and a mythic past of well-ordered communities. By the late 19th century, Christmas had become a major American festival. Today, it is a multi-billion dollar industry and easily the most important seasonal event of the year. In this survey of the modern American Christmas, William Waits shows us how this holiday emerged, tracing its evolution from the days prior to 1880 when people presented one another with simple crafted presents to the turn of the century when industrialization brought with it waves of inexpensive, tawdry gimcracks. In the early twentieth century, reform-minded Americans reflecting on the new Christmas prompted a backlash against this cheapening of the Yule tradition, and the Christmas card was born. Henceforth, family members and close friends exchanged useful, costly items, while cards were sent to acquaintances and distant relatives. These reformers also persuaded retail stores to keep their regular hours of business during the holiday, rather than lengthening them, to give trade workers the opportunity to join in the celebration. They also rationalized the collection and distribution of holiday charity, resulting in the Christmas celebration we have today. Waits's book clearly illustrates that the notion that Christmas is uncontrollable is simply untrue. An incisive and engaging history of giftgiving, The Modern Christmas in Americaalso examines the differing traditions of giftgiving to friends, employees, the poor, and among entire communities. Handsomely illustrated with dozens of historical photographs, this book is not only the perfect holiday gift but will also be of interest to any student of American history and culture.

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

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How much do the English really care about their stately homes? In this pathbreaking and wide-ranging account of the changing fortunes and status of the stately homes of England over the past two centuries, Peter Mandler melds social, cultural, artistic, and political perspectives and reveals much about the relationship of the nation to its past and its traditional ruling elite. Challenging the prevailing view of a modern English culture besotted with its history and its aristocracy, Mandler portrays instead a continuously changing and modernizing society in which both popular and intellectual attitudes toward the aristocracy—and its stately homes—have veered from selective appreciation to outright hostility and only recently to thoroughgoing admiration.With great panache, Mandler adds the missing pieces to the story of the country house. Going beyond its architects and its owners, he brings to center stage a much wider cast of characters—aristocratic entrepreneurs, anti-aristocratic politicians, campaigning conservationists, ordinary sightseers and voters—and a scenario full of incident and local and national color. He traces attitudes toward the stately homes, beginning in the first half of the nineteenth century when public feeling about the aristocracy was mixed and divided. Criticism of the "foreign" and "exclusive" image of the typical aristocratic country house was widespread. At the same time, interest grew in those older houses that symbolized an olden time of imagined national harmony. The Victorian period also saw the first mass tourist industry, and a strong popular demand emerged for the right to visit all the stately homes. By the 1880s, however, hostility toward the aristocracy made appreciation of any country house politically treacherous, and interest in aristocratic heritage declined steadily for sixty years. Only after 1945, when the aristocracy was no longer seen as a threat, was a gentle revival of the stately homes possible, Mandler contends, and only since the 1970s has that revival become a triumphant appreciation. He enters today's debate with a discussion of how far people today—and tomorrow—are willing to see the aristocracy's heritage as their own.

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

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

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