A modern biography of Samuel Johnson that will serve as the definitive work on the legendary British man of lettersIn this groundbreaking portrait of Samuel Johnson, David Nokes positions the great thinker in his rightful place as an active force in the Enlightenment, not a mere recorder or performer, and demonstrates how his interaction with life impacted his work. This is the story of how Johnson struggled to define the English language, why he embarked upon such ...

Richard III is accused of murdering his nephews (the 'Princes in the Tower') in order to usurp the throne of England. Since Tudor times he has been painted as the 'black legend,' the murderous uncle. However, the truth is much more complicated and interesting. Rather than looking at all the killings Richard III did not commit, this book focuses on the one execution for which we know that he was responsible.On Friday 13 June 1483, William, Lord Hastings was hustled ...

The life and mind of C. S. Lewis have fascinated those who have read his works. This collection of his personal letters reveals a unique intellectual journey. The first of a three-volume collection, this volume contains letters from Lewis's boyhood, his army days in World War I, and his early academic life at Oxford. Here we encounter the creative, imaginative seeds that gave birth to some of his most famous works.At age sixteen, Lewis begins writing to Arthur Greeves, a boy his ag...

In eighteenth-century England the aristocracy dominated the imagination, their exploits -- and misdeeds -- discussed, debated, and gossiped about in the salons and parlors of London. Now author Martin Levy vividly re-creates one of the most shocking and scandalous events of the period, in a riveting true tale of passion, obsession, murder, and courtroom drama.On a spring evening in the year 1779, a young woman emerged from London's Covent Garden Theatre amid a grand swirl of lords ...

Did Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes on the Tower, survive his imprisonment? In this revealing new book medieval historian David Baldwin presents an original and intriguing scenario.On 27 December 1550 an old man named Richard Plantagenet was buried at Eastwell in Kent. He had spent much of his life working as a bricklayer at St John's Abbey, Colchester, but, unusually for a bricklayer, he could read Latin. Reluctant to give any account of his back...

At a time when there were almost no career openings for women a group of intrepid and gifted females scaled the heights of what was literally a man's world - they became bawds. Mother Clap - women bawds were often known as Mother - ran male brothels, or Molly Houses. Elizabeth Holland had an immense moated mansion built on Bankside and for thirty years entertained the aristocracy, including royalty. When troops attempted to stop her trade and eject her from the house, she ...

'Fascinating scholarship. Todd conveys Behn's vivacious character and the mores of the time' New York Times'All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn; for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds,' said Virginia Woolf. Yet that tomb, in Westminster Abbey, records one of the few uncontested facts about this Restoration playwright, poet of the erotic and bisexual, political propagandist, novelist and spy: the date of her death,...

An fascinating account of witch trials in 1634 where over 60 local people were arrested in the area of Pendle Forest (East Lancashire - Northern England). These unfortunates were tried for their lives on the evidence of a ten year-old boy who became famous as the 'Pendle Witch-finder.'This case became nationally famous when King Charles the First took a personal interest. Playwrights wrote and performed plays in London and these were widely acclaimed.The 1634 trials followe...

Elizabeth I is perhaps England's most famous monarch. Born in 1533, the product of the doomed marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was heir to her father's title, then disinherited and finally imprisoned her half sister Mary. Her childhood was one of fear and danger, she was aware from the outset that the eyes of the world were upon her and that to survive she would have to rely on her own judgement and strength of character. Many tried to use her for their ow...

Antonia Fraser's Perilous Question is a dazzling re-creation of the tempestuous two-year period in Britain's history leading up to the passing of the Great Reform Bill in 1832, a narrative which at times reads like a political thriller.The era, beginning with the accession of William IV, is evoked in the novels of Trollope and Thackeray, and described by the young Charles Dickens as a cub reporter. It is lit with notable characters. The reforming heroes ar...

A classic reissue of Richard Holmes’s brilliant book on Samuel Johnson’s friendship with the poet Richard Savage, which won the James Tait Black Prize for Biography.Dr Johnson & Mr Savage is the story of a mysterious eighteenth-century friendship. Richard Savage was a poet, playwright and convicted murderer who roamed through the brothels and society salons of Augustan England creating a legend of poetic injustice. Strangest of all his achievements was the friendship he inspired in...

Mary Robinson, nicknamed 'Perdita' by the Prince of Wales after her role on the London stage, was a woman in whom showmanship and reckless behaviour contrasted with romantic sensibility and radical thinking. Born in Bristol in 1758, she moved to London with her family at a young age and was trained by Garrick for the theatre. After a royal command performance as Perdita in "The Winter's Tale", she was hotly pursued by George, the 17-year-old Prince of Wales, and she became...