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76616 MEMOIRS OF DUC DE SAINT-SIMON 1691-1709: A Shortened Version Presented


to the King by Duc de Saint-Simon One of the most eloquent wordsmiths in history, with a passion that often tore through the page as he wrote, Saint-Simon, a Duke and a Peer at the court of Louis XIV, spent his lifetime crafting what have often been called the greatest memoirs ever written. As a young man at the royal court, he experienced first-hand the endless wars and corruption that had begun to tarnish the sun King’s glow. With a keen eye and a sharp wit, he painted a portrait of Dukes and Duchesses, Princes and Bastards, as they all vied for power against the debauched and opulent backdrop of one of the grandest courts ever known. Apart from penning his extensive life story, Saint-Simon also bought a regiment and then got married. Thereafter, his life was spent between the army and the court. Whilst disapproving of the scandalous behaviour that went on around him, he could not resist chronicling some of the more outrageous happenings. Readers are in his debt for the fidelity with which he reported the black as well as the brilliant side of the last years of the reign of Louis XIV. He did, for instance, remain a friend and candid counsellor of the more than dissolute Duke of Orleans without ever condoning his flagrant vices. It was the truth that he pursued. A whopping 535 paperback pages with maps and family tree. We have here a shortened version translated and edited by Lucy Norton with an introduction by D. W. Brogan. $21.95 NOW £5


76617 MEMOIRS OF DUC DE SAINT-SIMON 1710-1715: A Shortened Version The


Bastards Triumphant by Duc de Saint-Simon The Sun King Louis XIV is dying, and the French court is erupting in a frenzy of twisted alliances and dark schemes in the struggle for power. As if readers were eves-dropping in the chambers and hallways of Versailles they can lap up the details of the many


VIII turned against Rome over the issue of divorce and adopted the Protestant religion, he changed the course of British history. Wilson retells the story of how the Tudor monarchs transformed the nation and how this had a huge impact on the English identity, on England’s relationship with its European neighbours, and also informed the foundations of Empire. By 1600, England had become a very different nation in which family, work, politics and religion were radically altered. A stimulating and authoritative history, 452pp in paperback.


£8.99 NOW £4.50


76537 BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PRIVATE LIVES OF THE ROMAN EMPERORS by Anthony Blond


A welcome reprint of the 1994 enjoyably monstrous, lively and amusing account of the Roman emperors. It is ancient history with all the boring bits taken out as effortlessly Blond provides a scandalous exposé of the life of the


Caesars. Julius Caesar was an arrogant charmer and a swank, while the revered Augustus was so conscious of his lack of height that he put lifts in his sandals. But they were nothing compared to Caligula, Claudius and Nero. Cicero revealed himself as a slum landlord in a letter to his friend Atticus. The loan of money at 48% by Brutus, ‘The noblest Roman of them all’, is a matter of Senatorial record. Augustus, friendless and bored in his old age, hoped his wife would find him a virgin for the afternoon. This enthusiastic book is ‘The personal view of an amateur and will therefore contain inaccuracies’. It is huge fun and written by a much- missed old friend of Bibliophile’s. 234pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £4.50


76641 ANCIENT PATHS: Discovering the Lost Map of Celtic Europe by Graham Robb


The curious symbols on Celtic coins, carvings, weapons and utensils give a hidden sense to everything that the Celts produced and that not all their secrets are undiscoverable because the answers to their riddles lie in the visible universe. In Lyon, the author found some orange


coloured shards and picked up five small fragments of Roman pottery one which wore the ribbed pattern of a wine cup. He was in the area which readers of Caesar’s Gallic War would recognise. When Graham Robb made plans to cycle the legendary Via Heraklea stretching from the south-western tip of the Iberian Peninsular, across the Pyrenees and towards the Alps, he was taking an ancient path that took him deep into the world of the Celts, their gods, art and most of all, their sophisticate knowledge of science. Gradually, a lost map revealed itself of an empire constructed with precision and beauty across vast tracts of Europe. Oriented according to the movements of the Celtic sun god, the map had been forgotten for almost two millennia and its implications were astonishing. Minutely researched and rich in revelations, the book brings to life centuries of our distant history and reinterprets pre- Roman Europe. Very engaging. 387pp with many maps.


£20 NOW £8


deaths, of plots and counter plots, the author’s own involvement and his close relationships with some of the most fascinating and vividly sketched characters in history. In this volume, the author witnesses the birth of the future Louis XV, learns of Vendôme’s ‘shabby alliance’ with Mlle d’Enghien, is himself ‘vilely slandered’ and is protected by Mme la Duchesse de Bourgogne. Then he feels himself ‘betrayed, deceived and supplanted by Pontchartrain’ so he breaks with him! Later, Saint-Simon finds himself in grave danger but recovers enough to describe a comical interlude at the session of the Parlement, followed by a description of the Duc de Noailles who also has turned against him. Then everything is forgotten with the death of the King. Strong stuff and absolutely authentic. A thick 525 paperback pages with maps, note on coinage, and list of the royal family in 1710 including Louis XIV’s bastards. Here is a shortened version translated and edited by Lucy Norton.


$21.95 NOW £5


76618 MEMOIRS OF DUC DE SAINT-SIMON 1715-1723: A Shortened Version Fatal


Weakness by Duc De Saint-Simon Described by The Sunday Times as ‘a supreme masterpiece’, this third volume of Saint-Simon’s memoirs starts at a time when Louis XIV, the Sun King, is dead. Intrigue and espionage run rampant at a royal court where indulgence and excess are the norm and the new king is only five years old. Saint-Simon has close ties to the most powerful man in France, the Regent Duc d’Orléans, but he also has enemies stronger than ever before. Both high drama and frivolous escapades reach new heights as he takes readers breathlessly into his final days at the French court and the end of an era. But before that, there is plenty of time for the author to titillate us with salacious details of what the members of the court are up to as he relates the ‘obstinate debauchery’ of the Regent and an extraordinary conversation at the Opéra, not to mention the shocking news that the old king’s bastards are to be excluded from the succession, followed shortly afterwards by their re- instatement. Never a dull moment. This is a shortened version translated and edited by Lucy Norton. A vast 524 paperback pages with map, genealogical table and details of the royal family after the death of Louis XIV. $21.95 NOW £5


76763 MEMOIRS OF DUC DE SAINT-SIMON: Set of Three by Duc De Saint-Simon


Buy all three and make further savings. ONLY £11.50


76609 EXCAVATING EGYPT: Great Discoveries


by Michael C. Carlos Museum Sub-titled ‘Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology’ and produced in association with University College London, this now rare catalogue dated 2005 was edited by Betsy Teasley Trope and Stephen Quirke. At a time when excavation often seemed little more than a treasure


hunt, William Flinders Petrie saw the need to develop scientific methods and techniques for the practice of archaeology. He built up a large collection of excavated objects of all types intended specifically to train young scholars with the material remains of Ancient Egypt. In 1913, his collection was bought for University College London by public subscription to form the Petrie Museum. His inspiration lives on in the collection he created and can now be enjoyed at leisure through this beautifully designed and photographed publication. It begins with a map of Egypt and the site work done by Petrie or under his supervision, followed by a chronology of Ancient Egypt from the pre-dynastic period, the Old Kingdom, Middle and New, all the intermediate periods through to the Graeco-Roman period, the Coptic period and the Arab conquest in AD642. Born in South London in 1853, Petrie, father and son, had devised a plan to go to Egypt and measure the Great Pyramid to test Piazzi Smyth’s theory. He sailed for Alexandria in 1880 and, ever frugal, moved into an abandoned tomb at the Giza necropolis setting up a hammock as a bed. Beautifully photographed in colour throughout some of the many items in the catalogue itself include funerary figurines, items from daily life like a black-topped jar, a bead and scorpion pendant, game boards, ankhs, mummy trappings, all manner of figures and statues and carvings and even a rat trap. Hundreds of colour examples, full chronology, 205pp in softback measuring 9" x 10¾”. ONLY £6


75695 FROM EGYPT TO BABYLON: The


International Age 1550-500BC by Paul Collins We may think that globalisation is a purely modern phenomenon, but this superb production from the Harvard University Press teaches that states and cities that waxed and waned and interacted in an extraordinary period of internationalism that existed in the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and Middle East before the rise of the Persian (Achaemenid) empire which dominated the entire region by 500BC. In the millennium that preceded this, societies such as the ancient Egyptians, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, Canaanites, Hurrians, Aramaeans, Israelites, Urartians, Mannaeans, Assyrians, Phrygians, Kassites, Chaldaeans, Scythians and Persians rose and fell in the region, all linked by military expansion, diplomatic relations, trade and movement of people, which brought about profound cultural exchanges and technological and social revolutions. Paul Collins, Curator of the Mesopotamia collections at the British Museum, uses a wealth of colour illustrations of objects from the Museum plus many maps to weave together for the first time a chronological political history of the region’s diverse societies. Local groups rose in Syria and Anatolia and new states such as Israel and Judah were formed. The Assyrian empire reached from Egypt to Iran and the Phoenicians flourished in the West. Ultimately this vast region was unified by the kings of Persia. 208pp, 8"×10". ONLY £8


75177 A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF LONDON by Lindsey German and John Rees London is a place where millions of people have struggled in obscurity for basic rights or to secure a better future. The Levellers doomed struggle for equal rights following the Civil War, the silk weavers, match girls and dockers who took on the all-powerful and seemingly unassailable factory owners in a battle for workers’ rights, famed revolutionaries like Karl Marx, Wat Tyler and John Wycliffe and those less celebrated like William Longbeard and John Ball, the Suffragettes, the heroes of the Blitz and even the ordinary East Enders who took on Oswald Mosely’s Black Shirts in Cable Street - all these and many more make an engrossing examination of the world capital of revolution, rebellion and free thought. 310pp paperback. £12.99 NOW £5.50


67858 INTIMATE LETTERS OF ENGLAND’S KINGS by Margaret Saunders


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Covering the period in history from the Tudor Dynasty to the House of Hanover, this book was first published in 1959 and is here in facsimile reprint. Brief details of each sovereign’s personal history has been included to refresh the reader’s memory. Starting with Henry VII (1457- 1509), ending with William IV (1765-1837), it is an illuminating insight into the lives of 13 kings and includes Henry VIII’s declaration of love to Anne Boleyn and James II’s sarcastic letter to his perfidious son-in-law, William of Orange. Humorous, charming, tragic. Simplified genealogical table, lists of letters. 240pp in large softback, photos. £15.99 NOW £4.50


73884 PRINTING PLACES: Locations of Book


Production and Distribution Since 1500 edited by John Hinks and Catherine Armstrong Its medieval interest is supplied by Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, printed shortly before the Reformation. There is a chapter on the production and distribution of literature designed to enlighten readers in early modern England about the ‘New World’ for, as research has time and time again revealed, the book trade has played a leading role in the spread of new ideas, particularly to America. Norwich is highlighted in an article on publishing in the turbulent 17th century, when new religious and political thought was rapidly spreading. The late 18th century periodical press of Edinburgh is discussed, and readers will be amused by an essay on medical advertising which was rife between 1855 and 1906. 15 articles. 208 pages, illus. $45 NOW £5


74041 IN BED WITH THE TUDORS The Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I by Amy Licence


Amy Licence guides us through the birth of Elizabeth of York’s sons Arthur and Henry, Catherine of Aragon’s subsequent marriage to both of them and the birth of her daughter Mary, Henry VIII’s other five wives and his mistresses, and the respectively tragic and non-existent sex lives of his daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Following Elizabeth of York’s six successful deliveries she died following a miscarriage 12 years after Prince Henry was born. Jane Seymour provided the required son, but died shortly after his birth. 256pp, colour illus. £20 NOW £4


75677 RED CLOUD by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin


When the American Civil War came to an end there was no let-up for the Army as the Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud led 3000 warriors in a campaign to secure their traditional hunting lands in the powder River Basin. Gold had been discovered in Montana, and on the 535-mile Bozeman trail across the Basin three forts had been constructed, in


defiance of a treaty ceding the territory to the native Indians. Red Cloud’s fighters ambushed and burned wagon trains, killed and mutilated civilians and outwitted and outfought government troops. In the winter of 1866 a company of Civil War veterans under the command of war hero Captain William Judd Fetterman picked their way towards the mighty east face of the Bighorn Mountains which few whites had ever seen. Fetterman was about to lose “Red Cloud’s war”, completely outmanoeuvred by the Indians’ guerrilla tactics and the administrative skills by which Red Cloud maintained discipline and cohesion in his army, to the astonishment of the U.S. troops. The official story casts Fetterman as the weak link. Red Cloud pleaded his cause in Washington and created a sensation. 414pp, photos. £20 NOW £5


74308 SOME TALK OF ALEXANDER: A Journey Through Space and Time in the Greek World by Frederic Raphael


The ribald fantasies of the ancient sculptor Baubo are compared with dreamlike and indelicate images by Magritte, a Roman marble of Ariadne is juxtaposed with the Surrealist de Chirico’s angular, semi-abstract treatment of the same theme, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Helen is compared with Marilyn Monroe, and a photo of the Greek Colonels from the early 70s is brought in to illustrate the concept of oligarchy. Frederic Raphael compares the political theatre of the ancient world with the rhetoric of the French Revolution. 336pp, photos. £24.95 NOW £4.50


74336 CHEEK BY JOWL: A History of Neighbours by Emily Cockayne


Emily Cockayne maps the complex emotional, sexual and economic threads of association between neighbours. The London Assize of Nuisance dealt with the rancour when a man removed a privy that he shared with a neighbour. Eavesdropping has been commonly linked with sowing ‘discord between neighbours’. Mary Wallys from London took the opportunity to cavort naked in bed with her lover when her book-binding husband was out of town. All was overheard and then overseen (by lifting up a painted cloth) by the neighbour! Fascinating case law. 273pp, illus. £20 NOW £3.50


History 17


76174 TOWER: An Epic History of the Tower of


London by Nigel Jones Built by William the Conqueror as part of a massive building programme designed to keep the unruly English in their place, the Tower was used for torture and execution throughout much of its history and came to symbolise the arbitrary cruelty of monarchs. But not all inmates came to a


gruesome end. The first monarch to make it his home was the 12th century King Stephen. In the next century King John imprisoned a woman who rejected his advances in a cage at the top of a turret. Under Edward I the Lion Tower held a menagerie which started to decline in the 17th century when disease wiped out three lions. Famous rebels to be brutally


executed include Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, Guy Fawkes and Sir Thomas More. The author takes the story into the 20th century with such inmates as Sir Roger Casement, knighted for his humanitarian work but executed as a traitor for his involvement in the Irish movement for independence. 456pp, photos.


£20 NOW £8


74360 CHRONICLE OF THE QUEENS OF EGYPT: From Early Dynastic Times


to the Death of Cleopatra by Joyce Tyldesley This is the first book ever to recount the full history of the colourful queens of Egypt. Its vivid biographies cover 3,000 years of Egyptian queenship from Early Dynastic times until the suicide of Cleopatra in 30 BC. There are stories of famous queens such as Hatshepsut, Nefertiti and Nefertari as well as lesser-known consort queens, which reveal the variety of roles a queen could play from supportive wife and mother to husband’s deputy in time of crisis, and even Pharaoh in her own right. Special features from hairdressing to childbirth, female sphinxes to food, the oracle to sexual etiquette, and personal names to women in literature highlight different aspects of Egyptian culture. The second part documents the lives of individual queens on a dynasty-by-dynasty basis. 224 pages 26cm x 20cm, 273 illus, 173 in colour. £19.95 NOW £8


74626 A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 100 OBJECTS by Neil Macgregor


This was a BBC radio hit series as all listeners became engrossed in exploring past civilisations through the objects that defined them. Beginning 2 million years BC to 9,000 BC with the mummy of Hornedjitef and the clovis spear point, we move through the Ice Age, food and sex, the first cities and states with objects like the Standard of Ur and the jade axe and early writing tablet, the beginnings of science and literature with the Flood Tablet and the statue of Ramesses II to gold coins, an Olmec stone mask, Chinese bronze bell, the head of Augustus, an Arabian bronze hand, a silk princess painting, Maya relief of royal blood letting, to a double headed serpent, a Hawaiian feather helmet, the credit card and a solar powered lamp and charger which is item number 100. Close up colour photos. 707pp. £45 NOW £16


74406 PANORAMA OF THE CLASSICAL WORLD


by Nigel Spivey and Michael Squire The world of ancient Greece and Rome is the starting point for Western philosophy, science, literature and art. This strikingly original account analyses the period by the ideas and value that underpinned its history, specifically: the centrality of the body in life and death; society, sexuality, gender and the family; hygiene and diet; the worship of gods and admiration of heroes; money and economic life; war and rebellion; politics in both theory and practice. Supported by a wealth of “soundbites”, an anthology of extracts from the ancient world, and an amazing 590 illus (400 in colour) provide a striking visual context to every aspect of the ancient world. Plus a dictionary of Classical lives and mythology, timeline and maps. 368pp softback, 8¾”×11". £18.95 NOW £6


74695 WILLIAM CAXTON AND EARLY


PRINTING IN ENGLAND by Lotte Hellinga The first book to be printed in England came off a small press in Westminster in 1476, a full 20 years after the process had been invented on the Continent. Recuyell of the Histories of Troye was a translation by printer William Caxton featuring red text, with spaces left for decorations. This study focuses closely on the first 60 years of printing in England, a period dominated by Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, and Julian Notary. The authorities recognised that the printing press had been responsible for the rapid spread of Protestantism and it was hoped that immigration restrictions could halt this. Starting with Gutenberg’s Bible, this volume reproduces pages from a huge range of early printed books. Caxton’s first major book was Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and at the behest of his patron Margaret of York he completed a number of translations. Pynson printed works dedicated to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and enjoyed Margaret Beaufort’s patronage. Wynkyn de Worde took on the printing of Boccaccio, and Julian Notary specialised in two-colour printing, producing a beautiful edition of Erasmus. Designed for both the specialist and general reader, this study is an important contribution to the history of the book trade. 212pp, bibliography, numerous reproductions. British Library Publishing, 24 x 17 x 2.5cm. £30 NOW £16


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