Historical Biography the accoutrements of Catholicism such as chalices and


30


images. The murder of revolutionary playwright Christopher Marlowe linked the stage with sedition and a period of radical censorship followed. In the 1580s, when Jesuit infiltration was perceived as a threat, Elizabeth’s right hand man was Francis Walsingham, and his exploits as spymaster and torturer make fascinating reading, for instance in the Ballard and Tyrell plot where Walsingham had infiltrated a revolutionary cell to unmask the Babington plot. A fascinating angle on the Elizabethan world. 350pp.


£27.99 NOW £7.50


76885 TWELVE CAESARS: The Dramatic Lives of the


Emperors of Rome by Matthew Dennison Under the rule of the 12 Caesars, from BC 49 to AD 96, Rome was transformed from a republic to an empire, whose model of regal autocracy would survive for more than 1,000 years. One of its rulers was a military genius, one murdered his mother and fiddled


while Rome burned, and yet another earned the nickname ‘sphincter artist’. Six of their number were assassinated, two committed suicide and five were elevated to the status of gods. This volume offers a beautifully crafted sequence of colourful biographies of each emperor, triumphantly evoking the luxury, licence, brutality and sophistication of imperial Rome at its zenith. But, as well as vividly re-creating the lives, loves and vices of this motley group of despots, psychopaths and perverts, the author paints a portrait of an era of political and social revolution, of the bloody overthrow of a proud, 500-year-old political system and its replacement by a dictatorship which against all the odds, succeeded more convincingly than oligarchic democracy in governing a vast international landmass. A sensational re-telling of the story of the Roman Empire at the height of its power and reach. 385 pages illustrated, glossary, family trees and endnotes. £20 NOW £7


76831 VICTORIAN ELLIOTS


IN PEACE AND WAR: Lord and Lady Minto, their Family and Household between 1816 and 1901 by John Evans


Set in Roxburghshire in Scotland and the fashionable Eaton Square in London, this story, part history and part an account of the daily life of a large aristocratic family, is told principally by the Earl and Countess of Minto, their five sons,


a diplomat, an MP, a soldier, a sailor and a lawyer and the daughters’ governess. The introduction provides readers with a summary of the lives, loves and character of the book’s principal dramatis personae along with members of the household between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the turn of the 19th century. With their mother’s encouragement, four of the five daughters made ‘appropriate’ marriages and were able to develop their skills as hostesses as well as demonstrating an appreciation of literature and the arts - meanwhile giving birth to and nurturing numerous children. The action takes place in Britain and across the world, in such places as Brazil and Uruguay, Morocco, China, Cape Province, Russia, Corfu, the Crimea, Bulgaria, Prussia, Italy, Sicily and the Vatican. It includes colourful descriptions of crises and revolutions, as well as the consequences of the fortunate marriage made by one of the Elliot daughters to a future British Prime Minister. By utilising the style and content of letters and diaries from a variety of sources, the book combines historical scholarship and the inside story of the family’s life. It is the first biography of the Minto family and one in which, unusually, both sexes have a part to play. 351 pages illustrated in b/w, family tree of principal members of the Elliot family and Lord John Russell, maps, plans and sketches.


£25 NOW £8


76872 LETTERS FROM AMERICA


by Alexis de Tocqueville For the first time here are the complete translated correspondence of Tocqueville on his first journey to America in 1831. These remarkable letters contain the seeds of his later masterful account of American democracy. They illuminate the purposes and perceptions of America’s most famous foreign interpreter and we learn much about his engaging


personality from them. The comments on American fine arts are rife with comic snobbery - American theatre is ‘frightful’, its actors ‘detestable’, its music ‘simply barbaric’. There there’s the clothing - ‘of various colours, all loud.’ And there is also reflective wisdom about ‘the happiest people’ and their materialist mode, about Indians and slaves, and this treasure trove of letters beautifully express the beguiling character of the young Alexis de Tocqueville. 284pp in paperback. £16.99 NOW £6


76933 CREATION OF THE AMERICAN SOUL: Roger Williams, Church and State, and the Birth of Liberty by John M. Barry In a masterful and penetrating book, the author layers biography and history, ranging widely across questions of politics, religion and ideology, and culminating in a definition of the very principles of a free society. Roger Williams was the first person to describe individual liberty in modern terms. He had a huge influence on Oliver Cromwell, John Milton and John Locke and he argued against slavery two centuries before its abolition. His mentor, Edward Coke, the greatest jurist in English history, inculcated in Williams the concepts of individual rights, and limits to state power, and was sent to the Tower for his views. Brought up at a time of intellectual, political, religious and social upheavals, which ultimately led to the English Civil War and the


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beheading of King Charles I, Williams developed an ‘altogether revolutionary’ and dangerous point of view. The first man in the world to insist that government should receive its power from and be controlled by its citizens, he proposed that there should be a hypothetical wall separating the church and the state. This seems obvious to us today but, when he articulated it, it was radically new. Threatened with execution, Williams was forced to flee Britain, and founded a new society in Providence, Rhode Island, where he worked to define the appropriate powers of government, the rights of individuals and the meaning and shape of liberty. 150 years later, his ideas were widely realised by Thomas Jefferson, and now survive as the foundations of freedom in the Western World - including the UK where his ideas were born. A must-read 464 pages. £25 NOW £7.50


77152 GALLEY SLAVE by Jean Marteilhe


Three centuries after they were written, these true accounts still speak to readers in the words of the voiceless and oppressed. They were written by a French Protestant who, as a galley slave in the early 18th century, was subjected to harrowing conditions and murderous toil, all for the sake of his religious beliefs. After the revocation of the


Edict of Nantes, Jean Marteilhe, like so many French Huguenots, attempted to escape to the more sympathetic Protestant countries bordering France, but was captured, thrown into gaol and condemned to serve in the French Mediterranean galleys. So little is known of life as a galley slave that Marteilhe’s astounding account represents the only authentic record of the suffering of those who experienced the appalling on- board conditions, the horrors of whips and chains and the dreaded ‘bastinado’ or foot-whipping. This courageous man survived for six years, watching friends and those who shared his beliefs lashed to death, and was eventually released under a general amnesty. An incredible and moving account. Abridged, edited and with a new introduction by Vincent McInerney. 210 pages with notes and map. £12.99 NOW £6


76463 ANNE BOLEYN: The Queen of


Controversy A Biographical Essay by Lacey Baldwin Smith


She was a young woman of no particular importance or talents. She was neither a great beauty nor a captivating charmer. In what way, then, was she so important in the scheme of British history? She was, it appears, the crucial catalyst for three of the most important events of her time - the break with the Pope and the Catholic Church, which led to the English Reformation, the advent of the nation state and the birth of her daughter. That daughter went on to sit for 43 spectacularly successful years on the throne. Without Anne Boleyn, the Reformation as we know it today would not have taken place. A mere three years later, was publically executed for treason, accused on what was probably a trumped-up charge of quadruple adultery and incest. 256 pages, colour and b/w illus. £20 NOW £6


76466 DOCTOR BARNARDO: Champion of


Victorian Children by Martin Levy Everyone has heard of Dr Thomas John Barnardo, but do we really know the details of who he was and what he accomplished? Here is information straight from the horse’s mouth by an author who grew up in the Barnardo Manor in the East End of London. Back then, there were still many grateful thousands who had known the great man personally. What was this workaholic Irishman up to? What was he up against and how well did he succeed? In this uplifting story of Barnado’s non-stop efforts in the cause of children’s welfare, which landed him in an early grave at the age of 60, it is clear that he changed Britain for ever and that much of modern child welfare started with him. 252 pages, archive photos. £25 NOW £7.50


76559 FREYA STARK by Caroline Moorehead


Born in 1893 in Paris, Freya Stark lived on the edge of Dartmoor, moved to Italy, read history at Bedford College London, served as a censor then a nurse in the First World War, travelled widely in Persia and the Near East in the early 1930s, published Baghdad Sketches, the Valleys of the Assassins and The Southern Gates of Arabia, a selection of essays Perseus in the Wind and the first of four volumes of autobiography Traveller’s Prelude and was made Dame of the British Empire in 1972. She died in 1993 in Italy at the age of 100. Precocious and tough, Freya Stark spent her childhood wandering across Europe, speaking three languages by the time she was five. Her solo expeditions in Persia and the Hadhramaut established her reputation as a great traveller and writer, but also as a geographer, historian and archaeologist. 204pp, paperback. £8.99 NOW £4.50


76577 KING CHARLES II by Antonia Fraser After the execution of his father King Charles I, the youth led a life of poverty and bitter exile, but this was to culminate in a magnificent escape from the troops of the self-styled Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and Charles’s eventual triumphant restoration to his throne in 1660. Charles was already 30 by that time, with one whole dramatic experience behind him. This detailed book spans both periods of his life and shows their relation to each other. He was, by blood, one-quarter Scots, one-quarter Danish, one-quarter French and one- quarter Italian. He had a very swarthy complexion and looked facially like an Italian. Nevertheless, in his tastes, he remained a very typical Englishman. His impressive stature of well over 6ft endeared him to his subjects. 670 pages with many plates in b/w and family trees of the royal houses of Bourbon and Stuart. £12.99 NOW £7.50


56597 MOHAMMED by Washington Irving According to Mohammed, the one true religion was revealed to five great prophets before him - Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. But each time their message was ignored and people chose to worship false


gods instead. As the last and greatest prophet of the one and only God, it was his task to abolish all idolatry. For many years his mission seemed hopeless. But when the city of Medina offered him sanctuary, his small band of followers rapidly multiplied. Mohammed now led his armies out to do battle in the desert, spreading his religion at the point of the sword. This later part of his life, as told by Washington Irving, is as much about military conquest as spiritual teaching. 272pp. Paperback. ONLY £2.50


71881 THE MISTRESSES OF HENRY VIII by Kelly Hart


In France, to be the King’s mistress was not a secret affair. But for Henry VIII, these relationships were private. His wives have appeared in many books as six very different women portrayed as feminist icons of the Tudor age. Bessie Blount, Mary Boleyn, Mary Shelton, Anne Stafford, Jane Popincourt and Elizabeth Amadas as well as his other mistresses, deserve to have their amazing life stories told just as much as his wives have. Here they are rescued from obscurity and we see how some of Henry’s lovers were involved in influencing profound changes in religion and society. 229pp in paperback. Photos. £8.99 NOW £4


74574 MAID AND THE QUEEN: The Secret


History of Joan of Arc by Nancy Goldstone Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who heard the voices of angels telling her to raise an army and go to the aid of the Dauphin, astonished her contemporaries and continues to intrigue us today. Until now, her relationship with Yolande of Aragon, mother-in-law to the Dauphin has been little understood. Here, the author solves the mystery by showing that, if you pry open the Queen’s secrets, you will find the Maid’s. Just when French hopes of restoring the Dauphin to the throne were at their lowest, a young woman arrived, leading an army. But how was she to gain an audience with the King? Was it God’s hand that moved her, or was it also Yolande of Aragon’s? 296 paperback pages, illus, extended genealogy. $16 NOW £4


74945 CLEOPATRA: The Last Pharaoh by Prudence Jones


We owe much of our knowledge of Cleopatra to her enemy Octavian, the man who had become Rome’s first Emperor Augustus. Cleopatra VII (69-30BC) was the last monarch of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. Daughter of Ptolemy XII, she ruled with her two brother-husbands, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV both of whom she had killed, and with her son Ptolemy XV or Caesarion (44-30BC). A master of self-presentation, she was the first to craft for herself an image or to be precise a number of images as a goddess, a political leader, or an alluring and exotic woman. Roman statesmen manipulated her image for their own political ends. Colour illus, 160pp, softback. 9 x 7". $17.95 NOW £2.50


75179 BLOOD SISTERS: The Women Behind


the Wars of the Roses by Sarah Gristwood Considered a “cousins’ war” by contemporaries, the series of dynastic conflicts between the Houses of Lancaster and York that ripped apart the ruling Plantagenet family in the 15th century was, at its heart, a domestic drama. Gristwood’s contention is that a handful of powerful women were just as decisive in the outcome as the men who fought and died seeking the throne. Seven women are studied in detail, among them Marguerite of Anjou, wife of Lancastrian Henry VI, who effectively ruled the kingdom as her husband went insane; Cecily Neville, the Yorkist matriarch whose son, Edward IV, had his brother George executed in order to maintain power and Margaret Beaufort, who gave up her own claim to the throne in order that her son, Henry Tudor, could become Henry VII, the first of the Tudor dynasty, after defeating Richard III of York at Bosworth. 524pp, 16 pages of colour plates. $29.99 NOW £7


75664 CHARLES DICKENS - A LIFE by Claire Tomalin


Many of Dickens’s life experiences found their way into his novels. Dickens spent idyllic childhood years in Chatham where his father worked for the Navy, but when they returned to London, John Dickens, who is regarded as a model for the insolvent Mr Micawber, was sent to the Marshalsea prison for bankruptcy. A kind friend gave Dickens a factory job but the experience was one of humiliation for the young boy, and characters such as Fagin and Smike had their origins in this unhappy period. The young Dickens finally got a job as a journalist which allowed him to marry Catherine Hogarth, but the union was a mistake and he quickly came to feel that they were temperamentally incompatible. Fascinated by the theatre all his life, he chose an actress, Ellen Ternan, as the companion of his mature years. Dickens’s philanthropy was legendary and with the wealthy Angela Burdett Coutts he founded a home for women who were prostitutes. 527pp, photos. £30 NOW £6.50


75676 PROUST’S OVERCOAT: The True Story by Lorenza Foschini and Eric Karpeles Proust’s brother, the doctor Robert Proust, had inherited some of Marcel’s furniture and clothes including the famous otter-lined coat in which the genius kept warm while both writing and sleeping. From that moment Jacques Guerin became obsessed with acquiring all the Proust memorabilia he could. A particular source was an insolent young man, Monsieur Werner, who sadistically teased Guerin with offers of further material. Finally he gave Guerin a prized possession, Proust’s legendary overcoat. 128pp. $19.99 NOW £2.50


75828 SARAH: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt by Robert Gottlieb


Takes readers into the eccentric world of a woman of relentless energy and will-power, who slept in a coffin, travelled with lion cubs, wore a hat festooned with a stuffed bat, slept with actors, playwrights and kings, and turned her theatre into a working hospital during the Franco-Prussian War. She was an accomplished sculptor too. Her indomitable spirit kept her acting until her late seventies. Even after her leg was amputated, she performed under bombardment for soldiers in World War I and worked in America to promote the Allied cause. Few readers will be able to resist this scintillating account of the transformation of the daughter of a courtesan into a national icon and a symbol of France. 233 roughcut pages, lavishly illus. £20 NOW £5.75


HISTORY


History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.


- Winston Churchill


76846 GEORGIAN LONDON: Into the Streets by Lucy Inglis


Here is an opportunity to travel back to the Georgian years, the age of love, sex, intellect, art, great ambition and fantastic ruin. From dukes and artists to rent boys, dog- nappers and hot-air balloonists, here are 18th century men and women in all their glory - or lack of glory. With this superb re-creation of the


life of that era, you can peer into the gilded drawing rooms of the aristocracy, walk down the quiet avenues of the new middle class or crouch in the damp doorways of the poor. But take care. Tourists make perfect prey for the thriving community of hawkers, prostitutes and scavengers. If you have a strong stomach, you can wonder at the madhouses of Hackney and the mean streets of Cheapside. If not, then browse at the silversmiths of Soho or hire a guard to take you safely past the gangs outside the pleasure gardens of Marylebone where the fireworks and the opera are the best in town, visit the zoo at the Tower of London or pop into St Paul’s to see progress on the new dome. If you are a male, you may partake of coffee in the city and scan the newspapers, or check the Stock Exchange. Should you wish to write letters, specialist pedlars hawk ink pigment and, for those who can afford it, the best quill that is, the third feather in from a goose’s wing. With this superb volume, you will almost believe that you are there. 386 pages in b/w with colour plates, maps.


£20 NOW £9 77119 ANTI-SEMITISM


by Dan Cohn-Sherbok The author is a major figure in Jewish scholarship and debate, with over 80 books to his credit. This book is especially timely, in view of the recent increase in the number of oppressed cultures, races and special interest groups who are seeking public


acknowledgement of their historical victimisation. Anti-Semitism has featured in the history of Western


civilisation since the Greeks. It is horrifying to contemplate that what the 20th century has seen through the lens of the holocaust has actually been happening for over 3,000 years. Here, Dan Cohn- Sherbok traces the origins of anti-Semitism and its manifestations, from political opposition to racial persecution and religious and philosophical justification for some of history’s most outrageous acts. Against this background of intolerance and persecution, he describes Jewish emancipation from the late 18th century, and its gradual transformation into the parallel political and nationalistic ideal of Zionism. This volume offers a clear and readable account of why anti-Semitism has featured so strongly in world history, and provides extensive discussion of the issues. He explores the origins of Arab and organised communist anti-Semitism and Nazi racism. Find out why, throughout history, the Jews have been systematically hated and murdered. 357 paperback pages, archive photos. £16.99 NOW £7


76880 PANORAMA OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT


by Dorinda Outram Here, for the enjoyment of our readers is a new and beautifully illustrated account of the crucial and profoundly exciting intellectual revolution that, between the late 17th century and the final years of the 18th, changed the Western world. It was the great age of


rationalism and tolerance, a time of boundless curiosity regarding the physical universe and the nature of the human mind. Superstition was being rejected, and there was a growing reliance on empiricism, that is, observation and experiment to arrive at the truth. It was an era that laid the foundations for the modern world. In this superb volume, the author places ideas in their widest possible context, expounding upon their social, political and cultural implications and how they condition society’s conduct in a variety of ways. She examines what ‘enlightenment’ meant to contemporaries, how it affected day-to-day life - for instance by the spread of reading, the open discussion of religion and the relationship between the sexes. At this time, introspection and self-knowledge became important, as did scientific research and advances in medicine. In the final chapter, the long-term impact of the Enlightenment is assessed, and some of its darker consequences balanced with its overall force for good. At every level, from coffee-house conversations to advances in astronomy, from the interpretation of dreams to voyages of discovery, from the first dictionaries and encyclopedias to new attitudes towards marriage and the rights of women - this enlightening book reflects the intellectual revolution that, 300 years ago, began to transform - and is still transforming, our collective consciousness. 320 pages 29cm by 23cm very lavishly enhanced by 153 colour and 234 b/w illustrations, with timeline, chronology as well as biographies of the major personalities of the era. £29.95 NOW £8.50


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