The classic, bestselling account of the infamous Kray twins, now a major film, LEGEND, starring Tom Hardy.Reggie and Ronald Kray ruled London's gangland during the 1960s with a ruthlessness and viciousness that shocks even now. Building an empire of organised crime such as nobody has done before or since, the brothers swindled, intimidated, terrorised, extorted and brutally murdered. John Pearson explores the strange relationship that bound the twins together, and ...

From the author of All the Money in the World and The Profession of Violence comes the definitive biography of James Bond's creator, Ian Fleming.It is now over fifty years since the premiere of Dr No, the very first Bond film, with Sean Connery introducing 007 as the glamorous secret agent who would become the single most profitable movie character in the history of cinema. But James Bond was invented by one man, Ian Fleming, a wartime intelligence office...

Ever since the Kray twins invited John Pearson to write their 'official' biography more than forty years ago, he has been obsessed with them. After they were jailed in 1969 for thirty years for murder, Pearson's biography The Profession of Violence enjoyed a cult following among the young and was said to be the most popular book in H.M.'s prisons, after the Bible.Ron died in 1995. Reg followed him five years later, and both of their funerals drew crowds on a scale unknown ...

John Pearson knows more about the Krays than anyone alive. Legend, starring Tom Hardy, was based on his book The Profession of Violence and it was Pearson who exposed the Boothby connection in 1994. In 1967 the twins asked Pearson to write their biography. He remained a confidant of the family and the brothers throughout their trial and prison years.Now Pearson revisits the twins' criminal past and lays bare the truth behind the legend. Drawing upon a mass of firs...

First published in 1976, this fictional biography is the intimate and detailed portrait of the celebrated Bellamy family of the TV show Upstairs, Downstairs.No family in the past century - excepting perhaps the Forsytes - has been so dramatically exposed to public stare as the Bellamys of Eaton Place. Drawing from the diaries of Richard Bellamy, the personal letters of Lady Majorie, the Southwold Papers in the British Museum, as well as his own friendship with James Bellam...

The original works of foreign classics, including the most representative literary masters and the most influential representative works.

On most days, Wisconsin farmer Lawrence (Shaver) Ketch works hard and fast in the mornings so he can be at his mother’s bar in the village of Wonder by noon for lunch. His routine is disrupted when a tragic accident at a nearby lake kills two teenage boys. An old nemesis would like to hold Shaver’s brother JJ, the county sheriff, responsible for the tragedy. Shaver knows that JJ has done no wrong and would like to help prove it. Steve Hardy, Shaver’s fellow bar patron, also believes in JJ’...

From the author of All the Money in the World, now a major motion picture, comes a history of Lady Diana's family, the Spencers, a dynasty that rose from sheep farmers to the ranks of upper aristocracy and, finally, royalty.When Lady Diana Spencer married the Prince of Wales in 1981, very little attention was given to her feudal family. The once powerful Spencer dynasty was in disarray and seemed to have outlived its usefulness. In the years following Dian...

Britain's foremost writer on crime turns to the disappearance of Lord Lucan. The basis of the upcoming ITV drama, Lucan, starring Rory Kinnear and Christopher EcclestonFor over thirty years, John Pearson has provided us with literary exposures of some of the most enigmatic people and underground organisations of our modern world. The Gamblers follows the fortunes of five men at the centre of the ultra-fashionable Clermont Set: the Clermont Club's eccentric...

From the author of All the Money in the World, now a major motion picture directed by Ridley Scott, comes the fictional biography of the mystical and fearless ace, James Biggles Worth.For over fifty years, James Biggles Worth, D.S.O., D.F.C., M.C. has flown the skies in everything from Sop with Camels to the earliest jets, he emerged with glory from devilish scrapes all over the world.Yet until now Biggles has often been seen as a storybook caricature. A dashed fin...

First published in 1978 Façades details the lives of three of the twentieth century's most intriguing literary figures: Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell. Aristocrats emanating from a privileged but loveless youth, they moulded the scene of the English avant-garde throughout the 1920s and in Cyril Connolly's words, 'had they not been there a whole area of life would have been missing.' Picking up protégés and starting feuds with equal alacrity they were never far from controve...

A fascinating look at the British Royal Family as they were perceived in the 1980s.In recent times the British monarchy has become an 'ultimate family' of international superstars, their adventures and personalities transmitted round the globe like episodes in the world's most popular soap opera.The process began with Queen Mary's transformation of the family into symbols of middle-class morality, but accelerated greatly with the televising of Queen Elizabe...