A rare collection of personal photographs following Nazi Germany's airborne soldiers on their missions through the Balkans, Crete, and Russia.The photos in this book are taken from an unpublished album that belonged to a member of the elite German Paratroopers. First Sgt Wilhelm Plieschen served with Fallschirmjager Machine Gun Battalion 7, which suffered very heavy losses in the invasion of Crete, then saw bloody conflict as Hitler's "Fire-fighters" on the Russian ...

When it was first published in 1897 – 120 years ago – Irish author Bram Stoker's Dracula was ranked by the Daily Mail above work by Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as Wuthering Heights. Yet it never madeStoker any money.Since 1931's film Nosferatu the Vampire, however, it has never been out of print and is legendary among fans of the dark, macabre and mysterious …Critic John Sutherland, a Dracula fan since childhoo...

For fans new and old, an enjoyable tour through the world of Dickens in the hands of a master critic. Charles Dickens, the 'Great Inimitable', created a riotous fictional world that still lives and breathes for thousands of readers today. But how much do we really know about the dazzling imagination that brought all this into being?For the bicentenary of Dickens' birth, Victorian literature expert John Sutherland has created a gloriously wide-ranging alphabetical companion to Dicken...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER IN A BRAND NEW EDITION'Enchanting...the most engagingly boffiny book imaginable.' SpectatorDoes Becky kill Jos at the end of Vanity Fair? Why does no one notice that Hetty is pregnant in Adam Bede? How, exactly, does Victor Frankenstein make his monster?Readers of Victorian fiction often find themselves tripping up on seeming anomalies, enigmas and mysteries in their favourite novels.In

The Battlefield General game books put you in command of the forces engaged in some of history's most famous battles. Your ability to make the right tactical decision will be tested at every turn of the page. The 2nd Battle of El Alamein in October 1942 was one of the crucial turning points of WWII. Here Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery ('Monty') and the British Eighth Army (the famous 'Desert Rats') halted the victorious advance of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (the Desert Fox) and his ...

How would you have fared as one Napoleon's marshals, or in command of a division of redoutable British redcoats under Wellington? Grand Battery offers you the chance to find out. This book includes all the rules you need to play miniature wargames set in the Napoleonic Wars, plus plenty of useful background information you need to get started.The book provides a concise historical overview of the events and battles of the period, and includes sections on the weapons and tactics of the vari...

Love, sex, death, boredom, ecstasy, existential angst, political upheaval - the history of literature offers a rich and varied exploration of the human condition across the centuries. In this absorbing companion to literature's rich past, arranged by days of the year, acclaimed critics and friends Stephen Fender and John Sutherland turn up the most inspiring, enlightening, surprising or curious artefacts that literature has to offer. Find out why 16 June 1904 mattered so much to Joyce, whi...

The Siege of Malta during World War II was one of the greatest dramas of the conflict. Bereft of vital defending aircraft, guns and ammunition this small island endured a succession of air raids from the Italian and German air forces. Valetta was virtually destroyed, the inhabitants took to living in the hills and caves as their houses lay in ruins. Food was scarce and the islands only salvation and survival depended on the arrival of the Allied convoys which themselves were constantly und...

The Royal Naval Patrol Service, or Harry Tates Navy as it was commonly known, was a unique service with its own rules and regulations. The officers and seamen were mainly ex-fishermen who had manned trawlers in Icelandic waters. The service was armed mostly with obsolete weaponry and suffered heavy casualties in the early stages of the war. The service was not confined to the seas around Britain and their small trawlers, drifters, paddle steamers, yachts and tugs saw service as far away as...

'Wonderful...concise, witty, effortlessly learned.' Sunday TimesHow does Magwitch swim to shore with a great iron on his leg? Where does Fanny Hill keep her contraceptives? Whose side is Hawkeye on? And how does Clarissa Dalloway get home so quickly?In this new edition sequel to the enormously successful Is Heathcliff a Murderer?, John Sutherland plays literary detective and investigates 32 literary conundrums, ranging from Daniel Defoe to V...

Working with prestigious archives of contemporary photographs, the authors chart the history of Britain's fishing heritage with 120 rarely seen photographs. Fishermen were hardy individuals with a precarious existence dictated by the changing rhythm of the wind and the waves. While at sea, their womenfolk cleaned, salted, pressed and bulked the fish. The fishermen of the East Coast are the last of the hunter gathers, in the later 19th and early 20th century British fishery expanded and exc...

This is the story of the historic air defense of Malta by the WRAF against the combined attacking forces of the Italian and German air forces. The island was poorly equipped when Italy declared war on Britain in June 1940 and its only defense against air attack at the outset of war were 34 heavy and 8 light antiaircraft guns, one radar set and four Gladiator biplane fighters. The first air raids came on 11 July and from then on were an almost daily feature of life for the Maltese occupants...