From disastrous foreign forays to syphilitic poets, from political intriguing to ambitious young playwrights keen to curry favour with the king, John Stubbs brings alive the vibrant cast of characters that were at the centre of the English Civil War. Stubbs shows the reader just how the country was brought to one of the most destructive moments in its history

The fourth in a series that documents architectural conservation in different parts of the world, Architectural Conservation in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands: National Experiences and Practice addresses cultural heritage protection in a region which comprises one third of the Earth’s surface.In response to local needs, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands have developed some of the most important and influential techniques, legislation, doctrine ...

A rich and riveting portrait of the man behind Gulliver’s Travels, by a “vivid, ardent, and engaging” (New York Times Book Review) author.One of Europe’s most important literary figures, Jonathan Swift was also an inspired humorist, a beloved companion, and a conscientious Anglican minister—as well as a hoaxer and a teller of tales. His anger against abuses of power would produce the most famous satires of the English language: Gulliver’s Trav...

Jane Shore often gets just a byline in history. We know her name, and that she was the mistress of a king. But who was this woman caputred for the stage by Shakespeare in 'Richard III', fictionalised by Jean Plaidy and others? Where did she come from? And how was it that having been mistress to the most powerful man in the land, she ended her years in prison and poverty? Jane Shore was born into a family of merchants and was married early, to William Shore. Having already ...

'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,...

In an England inhabited by Pepys, Evelyn, Dryden, Hobbes and the young Isaac Newton, Charles II is king, and the nation is beginning to relax a little after the tough, joyless years of Cromwell's Protectorate.In RESTORATION, Alex Larman paints a fascinating portrait of a country in the throes of social, political and cultural change following the convulsions of the Interregnum. Exploring every level of English society, from innkeepers and upholsterers to lawyers and courtiers, and ...

A look at the constant confrontation with mortality the English experienced in a time of plague, smallpox, civil war, and other calamities.In the lives of the rich and poor alike in seventeenth-century England, death was a hovering presence, much more visible in everyday existence than it is today. It is a highly important and surprisingly captivating part of the epic story of England during the turbulent years of the 1600s.This book guides readers through th...

The story of the death, in sinister circumstances, of the boy-king Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, is one of the most fascinating murder mysteries in English history. It is a tale with profound moral and social consequences, rich in drama, intrigue, treason, scandal and violence. In this gripping book Alison Weir re-examines all the evidence - including that against the Princes' uncle, Richard III. She brilliantly reconstructs the whole chain of events leading to th...

Marcia Langton: Welcome to Country is a curated guidebook to Indigenous Australia and the Torres Strait Islands. In its pages, respected scholar and author Professor Marcia Langton offers fascinating insights into Indigenous languages and customs, history, native title, art and dance, storytelling, and cultural awareness and etiquette for visitors. There is also a directory of Indigenous tourism experiences, organised by state or territory, covering galleries and ...

In her highly praised The Six Wives of Henry VIII and its sequel, Children of England, Alison Weir examined the private lives of the early Tudor kings and queens, and chronicled the childhood and youth of one of England's most successful monarchs, Elizabeth I.This book begins as the young Elizabeth ascends the throne in the wake of her sister Mary's disastrous reign. Elizabeth is portrayed as both a woman and a queen, an extraordinary phenomenon in a patriarchal a...

Marcia Langton: Welcome to Country 2nd edition is the essential follow-up to Australia’s landmark travel guide to Indigenous Australia, Welcome to Country.In this extensively updated edition, Marcia Langton offers a full range of Indigenous-owned or -operated tourism experiences across Australia, including an expanded directory with 250 new listings, illustrated maps, and photography by Wayne Quilliam.Australia is home to the longest continuing culture on E...

Elizabeth of York would have ruled England, but for the fact that she was a woman. The eldest daughter of Edward IV, at seventeen she was relegated from pampered princess to bastard fugitive, but the probable murders of her brothers, the Princes in the Tower, left Elizabeth heiress to the royal House of York, and in 1486, Henry VII, first sovereign of the House of Tudor, married her, thus uniting the red and white roses of Lancaster and York.Elizabeth is an enigma. She had schemed ...