At 7:15pm on Sunday August 29th 1819, the village of Ashow, Warwickshire was shook to its core by a young girl's scream at Dial House Farm. Thirteen-year-old Mary Dormer found her mother, Sarah Dormer's, slain body lying in Sarah's bedroom.Sarah's 21-year-old maidservant, Ms Ann Heytrey was charged, arrested, and imprisoned at the County Town Gaol at Warwick, where she would remain until the following year when she was tried at Warwick Assizes for Sarah's murder. After being found ...

THE MULTI AWARD-WINNING NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERA TIMES Top Ten Best True Crime book: 'Groundbreaking. E****xtraordinary''Terrific' Ian Rankin'Gripping' NEW YORK TIMES'At last, the Ripper's victims get a voice... An eloquent, stirring challenge to reject the prevailing Ripper myth' MAIL ON SUNDAYWINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FO...

The London of Jack the Ripper: Then and Now' is a photographic journey through the London of Jack the Ripper as it was when he stalked the mean streets and alleyways of the Capital.Robert Clack and Philip Hutchinson take the reader on a step-by-step tour of the crime scenes, giving a detailed history of the victims, the crimes and the police investigation.Using many previously unpublished photographs and illustrations, the authors put the reader on the very streets that Jack walked, s...

“A vivid, entertaining and often comical portrait of life at court.” —Wall Street Journal“Compelling. . . . The rhythm of court life at Windsor or Balmoral is the backdrop to a rich human drama, a story of people existing in uneasy intimacy with the royal family.” — Daily Telegraph (London)Based on the letters and diaries of six members of Queen Victoria's household, Serving Victoria offers unique insight into the queen and her court. Seen through the eyes of her servants—i...

This biography of the mysterious Maria Branwell "portrays a woman of intelligence, social savvy, wit and strength as well as a love for books . . . engrossing" ( Historical Novel Society).They were from different lands, different classes, different worlds almost. The chances of Cornish gentlewoman Maria Branwell even meeting the poor Irish curate Patrick Brontë in Regency England, let alone falling passionately in love, were remote. Yet M...

Outrageously handsome, witty and clever, Harry Cust was reputed to be one of the great womanisers of the late Victorian era. In 1893, while a Member of Parliament, he caused public scandal by his affair with artist and poet Nina Welby Gregory. When she revealed she was pregnant, horror swept through their circle known as 'the Souls', a cultured, mostly aristocratic group of writers, artists and politicians who also rubbed shoulders with luminaries such as Oscar Wilde and H...

In 1888 Jack the Ripper made the headlines with a series of horrific murders that remain unsolved to this day. But most killers are not shadowy figures stalking the streets with a lust for blood. Many are ordinary citizens driven to the ultimate crime by circumstance, a fit of anger or a desire for revenge. Their crimes, overshadowed by the few, sensational cases, are ignored, forgotten or written off. This book examines all the known murders in London in 1888 to build a p...

From the crowded tenements of Edinburgh to the Female Factory nestling in the shadow of Mt Wellington, dozens of Scottish women convicts were exiled to Van Diemen's Land with their young children. This is a rich and evocative account of the lives of women at the bottom of society two hundred years ago. 'Her superb research and sympathetic reconstructions of nineteenth-century Scotland and Australia bring to life a long-forgotten but fascinating group of women.' - Siân Rees, author of The F...

In celebration of the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s birth, read this sparkling portrait of her court, seen through the lives of her household.‘Eye-opening and thoroughly engaging’ Sunday TimesDuring the sixty-three years of her reign, Queen Victoria gathered around her a household dedicated to her service. By following their lives - from governess to maid-of-honour, chaplain to personal physician - Serv...

'It covers three centuries of high living, high politics and high drama [...] it is so fascinating' MEL SYKES_____________________________A Sunday Times bestsellerFive women. One house. One extraordinary history.Even today, Cliveden retains its royal mystique - it is where Meghan Markle and her mother spent the night before the royal wedding - but from its construction in the 1660s to ...

A vivid and graphic survey of the casualties of childhood during the Victorian Era through detailed and never-before-seen firsthand accounts.Take a fascinating journey into the real lives of Victorian children—how they lived, worked, played, and far too often, died before reaching adulthood. These true accounts, many of which had been hidden for more than a century, reveal the hardship and cruel conditions endured by young people living through the tumult of the In...

Many thousands of abandoned children were treated as free labour in late 19th century Australia, yet their stories have been hidden until now, even to their descendants. Lucy Frost's painstaking research has uncovered what really happened to the convict orphans.Longlisted for the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards Premier's Prize for Non-fictionLonglisted for the 2024 Green Family Tasmanian History AwardAll families have...