A biography of an unsung Victorian hero, Joseph Paxton was the man behind the garden design at Chatsworth and the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851.The Victorians heralded a new era of creativity, a revolutionary fervour seizing all forms of design. Joseph Paxton was a leading light of this movement. Head Gardener at Chatsworth House by the age of twenty-three, encouraged by the sixth Duke of Devonshire he transformed the Derbyshire estate into the greatest garden in E...

From the Iron Age to the Industrial Revolution, the Romans to the Regency, few things have mirrored society or been affected by its upheavals as much as the food we eat and the way we prepare it. In this involving history of the British people, Kate Colquhoun celebrates every aspect of our cuisine from Anglo-Saxon feasts and Tudor banquets, through the skinning of eels and the invention of ice cream, to Dickensian dinner-party excess and the growth of frozen food. Taste tells a st...

THE THRILLING TRUE STORY OF BRITAIN'S FIRST EVER RAILWAY MURDER'A fascinatingly quirky portrait of the underside of Victorian London . . . unputdownable' Daily Telegraph'A cunning and suspenseful tale' Independent'Meticulously researched . . . the final revelation is a showstopper' New York TimesOn 9 July 1864, businessman Thomas Briggs walked into carriage 69 on t...

In the summer of 1889, young Southern belle Florence Maybrick stood trial for the alleged arsenic poisoning of her much older husband, Liverpool cotton merchant James Maybrick.'The Maybrick Mystery' had all the makings of a sensation: a pretty, flirtatious young girl; resentful, gossiping servants; rumours of gambling and debt; and torrid mutual infidelity. The case cracked the varnish of Victorian respectability, shocking and exciting the public in equal measure as they clambered ...