One climbed to the very top of the social ladder, the other chose to live among tramps. One was a celebrity at twenty-three, the other virtually unknown until his dying days. One was right-wing and religious, the other a socialist and an atheist. Yet, as this ingenious and important new book reveals, at the heart of their lives and writing, Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell were essentially the same man.Orwell is best known for Animal Farm and 1984, Waugh for Bri...

The award-winning biography of one of Australia's best-loved writers ... The author of MY BRILLAINT CAREER had a fascinating career of her own ... Winner of the Adelaide Festival Award for Literature for Non-Fiction 2010'a long-awaited and splendidly breezy blockbuster biography of the indefatigable, self-inventing and campaigning author of My Brilliant Career' Richard Holmes, AUStRALIAN BOOK REVIEW 'to meet Miles Franklin was as invigorating as to ride on a spring morning across th...

WINNER OF THE POLITICAL BOOK AWARDS POLITICAL HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014.Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo scandal, An English Affair is a sharp-focused snapshot of a nation on the brink of social revolution.Britain in 1963 – Harold Macmillan was the Prime Minister of a Conservative government, dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and, above all, old-fashioned morality. But a breakdown of social boundaries saw nightclub host...

The childhood and early life memoir of Antonia Fraser, one of our finest narrative historians.Antonia Fraser's magical memoir describes growing up in the 1930s and '40s, but its real concern is with her growing love of history. A fascination that began with reading Our Island Story and her evacuation to an Elizabethan manor house at the beginning of the Second World War soon developed into an enduring passion, becoming, in her own words, 'an essential part...

The unputdownable biography of the enigmatic spy and traitor Guy Burgess: 'More riveting than a spy novel' - Sunday TelegraphGuy Burgess was the most important, complex and fascinating of 'The Cambridge Spies' - Maclean, Philby, Blunt - all brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, ...

“Hitchens presents a George Orwell fit for the twenty-first century.”—The Boston GlobeIn this widely acclaimed biographical essay, the masterful polemicist Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. True to his contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the...

Jack the Ripper was the slayer of at least five female victims in London's East End, but his legacy left many more victims in its wake than he could have ever imagined. From the Royal Family and the British Government to the London Police and minority groups, the list of 'other' victims that were created as a direct result of the Jack the Ripper murders goes on and on. Following the success of their first book, the authors from The Whitechapel Society have compiled this ul...

Emerging from modern history as a remarkable and much-loved family, the Mitfords have remained largely unrepentant concerning theirs and particularly Unity's enthusiastic support of Hitler, the Nazis, Oswald Mosley and British fascism. However, having initially encouraged and supported Unity's affair with Hitler, they subsequently insisted that she had in fact been a rather unintelligent, clumsy lump of a girl, whose virginal relationship with one of the most terrifying di...

Closet Queens is a fascinating study of gay men in twentieth century British politics, from Lord Rosebery and Lord Beauchamp in Edwardian times to Michael Portillo and Peter Mandelson in our own era.As all homosexual activity was illegal until 1967, and exposure meant ruin and disgrace, such men were obliged either to repress their sexual feelings or else lead double lives, indulging their tastes secretly while respectably married with children.The need to cover up...

Born in Thamesville, Ontario, a student at Queen’s University in Kingston in the 1930’s, and editor and later publisher of the Peterborough Examiner from the 1940s to the mid-1960s, playwright, essayist, critic, professor, and novelist Robertson Davies (1913-1995) was one of Canada’s pre-eminent literary voices for more than a half-century.Davies, with his generous beard and donnish manner, was the very epitome of the "man of letters," a term he abhorred. Best known for his Deptfor...

Oxford is a world-renowned stronghold of knowledge, a lush medieval city dotted with beautiful gardens. But it also has a symbolic meaning well beyond these things. It stands for something deep in our minds - excellence, a kind of privilege, a charmed life, deep-veined liberalism, a respect for tradition. It is an ivory tower: a quiet, thoughtful place, yet one whose scholars and ideas affect us all.In his attempt to capture the spirit of this cloistered hall, Cartwright has spoken ...

A full and revealing biography of one of the century’s greatest English writers and an icon to a generation.Dame Iris Murdoch has played a major role in English life and letter for nearly half a century. As A.S.Byatt notes, she is ‘absolutely central to our culture’. As a novelist, as a thinker, and as a private individual, her life has significance for our age. There is a recognisable Murdoch world, and the adjective ‘Murdochian’ has entered the language to describe situations whe...