Vivienne Westwood was the Queen of Punk Rock and her fashions have scandalized and fascinated the world since the Sixties. Parading models bare-breasted down the catwalks of Paris, posing pantiless outside Buckingham Palace-she has an insatiable appetite for anarchic outrageousness. She has never lost her power to shock, and her continued innovations make her one of the most talked about fashion designers in the world. But little is know about this essentially private woman. What is she li...

The Sex Pistols’ story is one of opportunity and outrage; arising from the chaotic slums of the punk movement, Jonny Rotten and Sid Vicious typified the anarchy and anger of their generation like none-other. In little over three years the Sex Pistols had transformed popular music and paved the way the likes of the Ramones and The Clash to gain recognition and acceptance in their wake.In a revolutionary flurry the band mocked and shunned the Briti...

The young Queen Victoria was a potent sex symbol, attracting outlandish fantasists. She also attracted stalkers and other unwanted attention seekers. The Victorian Press sardonically dubbed such people “Victoria’s lovers.” Victorian psychiatrists labelled them, “erotomaniacs.” Drawing on original and untapped sources this book tells their unexpurgated stories. It  includes the tale of Captain Jonathan Childe of the Royal Horse Guards, who bombarded Victoria with outrageously p...

A crime and a six-decade cover-up: the death of a fashion designer in the cesspit of vice and violence that was 1950s London.In 1954, Jean Mary Townsend was strangled with her own scarf and stripped of her underwear but not sexually assaulted. The subsequent police investigation was bungled, leading to a six-decade cover-up, ensuring that this twenty-one-year-old fashion designer was effectively killed twice: first bodily, and then as her significance and her memor...

Party-girl supreme and queen of street fashion, supermodel and millionairess, Kate Moss is as familiar in headlines as on the catwalk as the twin narratives of lurid tabloid stories and continuing adulation of the fashion industry demonstrates to all the paradox of fame. Whether she’s partying, finding another way to get out of it, or strutting self-assuredly down a catwalk in Paris you can be sure photographers are in a huddle close by, ready splash her or crash her in tomorrows headlines...

Party-girl supreme and queen of street fashion, supermodel and millionairess, Kate Moss is as familiar in headlines as on the catwalk as the twin narratives of lurid tabloid stories and continuing adulation of the fashion industry demonstrates to all the paradox of fame. Whether she’s partying, finding another way to get out of it, or strutting self-assuredly down a catwalk in Paris you can be sure photographers are in a huddle close by, ready splash her or crash her in tomorrows headlines...

From the private world of a beloved English queen, a story of intimacy, royalty, espionage, rumor, and subterfugeQueen Elizabeth I acceded to the throne in 1558, restoring the Protestant faith to England. At the heart of the new queen's court lay her bedchamber, closely guarded by the favored women who helped her dress, looked after her jewels, and shared her bed.Elizabeth's private life was of public concern. Her bedfellows were witnesses to the face and bo...

“A vivid, entertaining and often comical portrait of life at court.” —Wall Street Journal“Compelling. . . . The rhythm of court life at Windsor or Balmoral is the backdrop to a rich human drama, a story of people existing in uneasy intimacy with the royal family.” — Daily Telegraph (London)Based on the letters and diaries of six members of Queen Victoria's household, Serving Victoria offers unique insight into the queen and her court. Seen through the eyes of her servants—i...

Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort had nine children who despite their very different characters, remained a close-knit family. Inevitably, as they married into European royal families their loyalties were divided and their lives dominated by political controversy. This is not only the story of their lives in terms of world impact, but also of their own personal achievements, their individual contributions to public life in Britain and overseas and in their roles as...

I like her not! was the verdict of Henry VIII on meeting his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, for the first time. Anne could have said something similar on meeting Henry and, having been promised the most handsome prince in Europe, she was destined to be disappointed in the elderly and corpulent king. Henry also felt that Anne was not as she had been described, complaining that he had been sent a Flanders mare.Forced to proceed with their wedding for diplomatic reasons, Henry and Anne ...

January, 1937: Peking is a heady mix of privilege and scandal, lavish cocktail bars and opium dens, warlords and corruption, rumours and superstition – and the clock is ticking down on all of it.In the exclusive Legation Quarter, the foreigners are jumpy. Japanese troops are poised to attack, and word has it the Chinese government is about to cut a deal with Tokyo, leaving Peking to its fate. Fear reigns inside the ancient city walls, on one of which, not far from the nefarious Bad...

Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, was the sixth child of Queen Victoria. Born in 1848, that year of revolution in Europe, her childhood was painfully overshadowed by the death of her father, the Prince Consort. Her mother's subsequent seclusion not only rocked the foundations of the Monarchy but also proved to be a traumatic period for her family. Whilst still a teenager, Princess Louise found herself thrust into the centre of British political life.Her marriage in 1871 to the Ma...