In a celebrated essay, Macaulay sums up Bacon's career as a "chequered spectacle of so much glory and so much shame." The words may fitly enough be applied not only to Bacon's life but to most men's lives and to most large experiments of human action. In 1942 I began to write a novel whose purpose was to trace the course of one such experiment from its beginnings in the eighties of last century up to our present time. I intended to call this novel, which would have been very long, So Much ...

What a place it was, that dark little house that was two rooms up and two down... I don't remember to this day where we all slept, though there was a funeral now and then to thin us out.This is the powerful story of two hard-driven men – one a celebrated English novelist, the other a successful Irish entrepreneur – and of their sons, in whom are invested all their fathers' hopes and ambitions. Oliver Essex and Rory O'Riorden grow up as friends, but in the years after the G...

When they buried the Old Warrior there was only one small wreath to go on the coffin... John Hamer Shawcross never forgot that moment.Hamer Shawcross is born into a poor but aspirational working-class family in Manchester. Studious and hard-working, he becomes a socialist activist, goes into politics and rises to becomes part of the privileged upper classes he began by opposing. Hamer's trajectory is mirrored by the rise of the Labour movement in Britain from the mid-19th ...

A trio of full-cast adaptations of the novels of Howard Spring, including his two best-selling works and featuring a 40-year-old Ian McKellen.Howard Spring was a Welsh author who was an immensely popular and successful writer from the 1940s to the 1960s. From 1934 he produced a series of best-selling novels, the most successful of which were My Son My Son and Fame is the Spur. This collection includes dramatisations of both of these novels, alongs...

From a New York Times– bestselling author, members of Parliament are murdered crossing Westminster Bridge in this "sterling" novel set in Victorian London ( Library Journal ).In the few minutes it takes to cross Westminster Bridge, Sir Lockwood Hamilton has his throat slit and is tied securely to the lamppost with his evening scarf. The killer then vanishes without being seen. In...

The sequel to Jennifer Worth's New York Times bestselling memoir and the basis for the PBS series Call the MidwifeWhen twenty-two-year-old Jennifer Worth, from a comfortable middle-class upbringing, went to work as a midwife in the direst section of postwar London, she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she also became the neighborhood's most vivid chronicler. Woven into the ongoing tales of her life in the East End are ...

'An ancient brooding castle... a dispossessed child... a lifelong passion for one errant man... wars, crises and feuds... ' WashINGTON POST.Reay Tannahill's great bestseller is the story of an extraordinary woman's determination to win back her birthright – the remote and beautiful West Highland castle of Kinveil – sold by her father to a Glasgow merchant when she was seven years old. It is also the intricate picture of a family in the heyday of the British Empire, an epic story sp...

For the first time in publishing history, this eBook presents the complete works of the Modernist master short story writer Katherine Mansfield, with beautiful illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Mansfield's life and works* Concise introductions to the short story collections and other works* The complete short stories* Images of how the books were first print...

Anna of the Five Towns is a novel by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1902 and one of his best-known works. The plot centres on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled by the Methodist church. The novel tells of Anna's struggle for freedom and independence against her father's restraints.

"A House to Let" is a collaborative Victorian literature anthology, featuring short stories by Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, and Adelaide Anne Procter. This captivating collection blends mystery, drama, and intrigue, centered around a rental property and its diverse inhabitants. Through the skillful collaboration of these renowned authors, each story in "A House to Let" unfolds with richly drawn characters and intricate plotlines, showcasing the multifaceted ...

Hard Times is Dickens's shortest novel, and arguably his greatest triumph. A useful appendix of the author's working notes, together with an enlightening introduction and full explanatory notes, will ensure that this edition becomes the obvious choice for anyone studying the novel. Paul Schlike is Lecturer in English at the University of Aberdeen. -