Achebe was acutely conscious that western views of Africa were inevitably those of a culture that assumed itself superior—materially, intellectually, even spiritually. He believed that even as original and subtle a work as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness—a novel deeply critical of colonialism and one that Achebe admired stylistically—reflects this. For Achebe, Heart of Darkness is tainted by racist preconceptions demeaning both Africa and Africans, and celebrating a work of art that fund...

This book examines the developments in British serial detective fiction which took place in the seven years when Sherlock Holmes was dead. In December 1893, at the height of Sherlock’s popularity with the Strand Magazine’s worldwide readership, Arthur Conan Doyle killed off his detective. At the time, he firmly believed that Holmes would not be resurrected. This book introduces and showcases a range of Sherlock’s most fascinating successors, exploring the ways in which a huge rang...

Few works of scholarship have so comprehensively recast an existing debate as Chinua Achebe’s essay on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Achebe – a highly distinguished Nigerian novelist and university teacher – looked with fresh eyes at a novel that was set in Africa, but in which Africans appear only as onlookers or as indistinguishable "savages". Dismissing the prevailing portrayal of Joseph Conrad as a liberal hero whose anti-imperialist views insulated him from significant c...

A mystery that offers "a gripping and richly atmospheric glimpse into the literal underworld of Victorian England—the labyrinthine London sewer system" ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).Clare Clark's critically acclaimed The Great Stink "reeks of talent" as it vividly brings to life the dark and mysterious underworld of Victorian London ( The Washington Post Book World). Set in 1855, it tells the story of William May, an engineer who h...

The author of In the Full Light of the Sun "treats the founding of French Louisiana with her signature dark realism and beautiful handling of character" ( Library Journal).Praised by Hilary Mantel, Amanda Foreman, and the New York Times Book Review for her "verve and intelligence . . . [and] the originality of her imagination," Clare Clark has become a rising star in historical fiction. Elisabeth is among twenty-three girls who set sail fr...

Based on a true story, this gorgeous novel follows the fortunes of three Berliners caught up in an art scandal—involving newly discovered van Goghs—that rocks Germany amid the Nazis' rise to power.In the turbulent years between the wars, nothing in Berlin is quite what it seems.Not for Emmeline, a wayward young artist freewheeling wildly through the city in search of meaning. Not for Julius, an eminent art connoisseur who finds it easier to love paintings th...

In the Full Light of the Sun follows the fortunes of three Berliners caught up in a devastating scandal of 1930s' Germany. It tells the story of Emmeline, a wayward, young art student; Julius, an anxious, middle-aged art expert; and a mysterious art dealer named Rachmann who are at the heart of Weimar Berlin at its hedonistic, politically turbulent apogee and are whipped up into excitement over the surprising discovery of thirty-two previously unknown paintings by Vincent van Gogh...

Les enfants Melville grandissent dans le château familial d’Ellinghurst : Jessica rêve de haute société londonienne, sa sœur Phyllis d’études à l’université, leur frère Théo, héritier du domaine, éclipse déjà tout le monde autour de lui.Quand la Grande Guerre éclate, chacun tente de trouver sa place dans un monde en pleine mutation. C’est alors qu’Oscar Greenwood fait irruption dans leur vie pour la bouleverser à jamais et révéler des secrets de famille enfouis depuis lo...

When your past is a lie, who are you?'Provocative, moving and timely' Mail on Sunday'Angry and engaged' Sunday Times'So perceptive and clever... I read Trespass in one go' Cathy Rentzenbrink'As political as it is personal, both moving and psychologically fascinating' Sadie JonesAs a teenager, Tess falls into environmental activism - and t...

It is 1910 and to ten-year-old Oskar Grunewald, the Melville family is impossibly, incomprehensibly glamorous. Born into privilege, their certainties are as unshakeable as the walls of their Victorian castle. It is a world to which Oskar, mathematics prodigy and son of a penniless German composer, has no wish to belong.But when Theo Melville is killed in the Great War, shattering his family’s lives, Oskar finds himself drawn reluctantly into the gaping hole his death has left behin...

**A New York Times Editors' ChoiceA Washington Post “Notable Fiction Book of 2015”**“[A] lavishly detailed historical novel that doesn’t just recreate the past but alters your perception of it.”—New York Times Book Review“As always, [Clark’s] environments are deliciously luxe. . . With splendid breadth and depth, We That Are Left accommodates an era’s worth of historical reverberations within the confines ...

It is 1704 and, in the swamps of Louisiana, France is clinging on to its new colony with less than two hundred men. Into this hostile land comes Elisabeth Savaret, one of twenty-three women sent from Paris to marry men they have never met. With little expectation of happiness, Elisabeth is stunned to find herself falling passionately in love with her husband, infrantryman Jean-Claude Babelon.But Babelon is a dangerous man to love. Witness to Elisabeth's devotion is another of his a...