Search results for ""author julie kavanagh""

ONE OF THE TIMES' BEST HISTORY BOOKS OF 2021'The tale of the Phoenix Park murders is not unfamiliar, but Kavanagh recounts it with a great sense of drama... Kavanagh's account reminds me of the very best of true crime.' The Times (Book of the Week)On a sunlit evening in l882, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, Chief Secretary and Undersecretary for Ireland, were ambushed and stabbed to death while strolling through Phoenix Park in Dublin. The murders were carried out by the Invincibles, a militant faction of republicans armed with specially-made surgeon's blades. They ended what should have been a turning point in Anglo-Irish relations. A new spirit of goodwill had been burgeoning between Prime Minister William Gladstone and Ireland's leader Charles Stewart Parnell, with both men forging in secret a pact to achieve peace and independence in Ireland - with the newly appointed Cavendish, Gladstone's protégé, to play an instrumental role. The impact of the Phoenix Park murders was so cataclysmic that it destroyed the pact, almost brought down the government and set in motion repercussions that would last long into the twentieth century. In a story that spans Donegal, Dublin, London, Paris, New York, Cannes and Cape Town, Julie Kavanagh thrillingly traces the crucial events that came before and after the murders. From the adulterous affair that caused Parnell's downfall to Queen Victoria's prurient obsession with the assassinations and the investigation spearheaded by the 'Irish Sherlock Holmes', culminating in a murder on the high seas, The Irish Assassins brings us intimately into this fascinating story that shaped Irish politics and engulfed an empire. This is an unputdownable book from one of our most 'compulsively readable' (Guardian) writers.

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NOW A MAJOR FILM BY RALPH FIENNES, THE WHITE CROW'A gripping account of an extraordinary life' Daily Telegraph Born on a train in Stalin's Russia, Rudolf Nureyev was ballet's first pop icon. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement - both on and off stage.Nureyev's achievements and conquests became legendary: he rose out of Tatar peasant poverty to become the Kirov's thrilling maverick star; slept with his beloved mentor's wife; defected to the West in 1961; sparked Rudimania across the globe; established the most rhapsodic partnership in dance history with the middle-aged Margot Fonteyn; reinvented male technique; gatecrashed modern dance; moulded new stars; and staged Russia's unknown ballet masterpieces in the West. He and his life were simply astonishing.'Magnificent, a triumph. Captures every facet of this extraordinary man' Mail on Sunday'The definitive study of a man who, in his combination of aesthetic grace and psychological grime, can truly be called a sacred monster' Observer'Undoubtedly the definitive biography' Sunday Telegraph

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The landmark novel that inspired both Verdi's opera La Traviata and the Oscar-winning musical Moulin Rouge!, in a sparkling new translation. One of the greatest love stories of all time, The Lady of the Camellias recounts the history of Marguerite Gautier, the most beautiful, brazen, and expensive courtesan in all of Paris. Known to all as 'the Lady of the Camellias' because she is never seen without her favourite flowers, she leads a glittering life of endless parties and aristocratic balls, with the richest men in France flocking to her boudoir to lay their fortunes at her feet. But despite having many lovers, she has never really loved - until she meets Armand Duval, young, handsome and from a lower social class, and yet hopelessly in love with Marguerite.ALEXANDRE DUMAS fils (1824-1895) was the son of the famous novelist Alexandre Dumas. In 1847 he published his first novel, Adventures of Four Women and a Parrot, followed a year later by The Lady of the Camellias and ten other novels over the next decade. After the great success of the dramatic version of The Lady of the Camellias, he was gradually drawn away from the novel to the stage. In 1874 he was elected to the French Academy and until his death continued to produce a long line of successful plays.LIESL SCHILLINGER is a journalist and literary critic who writes regularly for The New York Times Book Review and spent many years on the editorial staff of The New Yorker. JULIE KAVANAGH is the author of The Girl Who Loved Camellias, a biography of the courtesan who inspired The Lady of the Camellias. An award-winning biographer of Rudolf Nureyev and Frederick Ashton, she has been London editor of both Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.'One of the greatest love stories of the world' Henry James'Anyone who has read an outdated English translation of this novel; seen the opera it inspired - La Traviata, by Verdi; or watched the film it inspired - Camille, starring Greta Garbo, might have missed the audacity, obstinacy, sensuality, and recklessness of its characters' Liesl Schillinger

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