This book is centered on the Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), on his two-year stay in Sicily in 1492-4 to study the ancient Greek language under one of its most distinguished contemporary teachers, the Byzantine émigré Constantine Lascaris, and above all on his ascent of Mount Etna in 1493. The more particular focus of this study is on the imaginative capacities that crucially shape Bembo's elegantly crafted account, in Latin, of his Etna adventure in his so-called De Aetna

A radical reassessment of Ovid's curse poem, Ibis, asserting its central place in his poetry of exile.

A BBC History magazine, Esquire, Historia magazine and Waterstones History Book of the Year'James comes alive in full flamboyance … Russell expertly weaves the bedchamber gossip into the tapestry of a tumultuous reign' SUNDAY TIMES'Brings the backbiting and power struggles of the Jacobean court to life with wit and vigour' OBSERVER‘A warts and all story told with compassion’ PHILIPPA GREGOR...

Essays from the Stoic philosopher instructing how to find happiness in a world full of adversity.Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and advisor to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Ma...

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERA debut novel full of magic, adventure, and romance, The Book of Doors opens up a thrilling world of urban fantasy for readers of The Midnight Library, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, The Night Circus, and any modern portal fantasy story that mixes the wonder of the unknown with just a tinge of darkness.Cassie Andrews works in a New York City bookshop, shelving books, making cof...

From the author of the internationally bestselling The Book of Doors, another fantastical, stand-alone novel in which a trio of seemingly everyday people are members of a secret society tasked with finding and protecting hidden magical objects—ordinary items with extraordinary properties.The world of unknowable objects—magical items that most people have no idea possess powers—has been quiet for decades, but the three current members of a secret society ha...

'If a house could gossip, this is the book that Hampton Court would whisper. An enjoyable and readable stroll through 500 years of Hampton Court history: royal residents, common visitors, thieves, invaders and ghosts’ PHILIPPA GREGORYFor centuries, Hampton Court has been a place of power, scandal and intrigue: a stage for events that shaped the nation. The Palace raises the curtain on 500 years of British history with royals, politicians, criminals...

'If a house could gossip, this is the book that Hampton Court would whisper. An enjoyable and readable stroll through 500 years of Hampton Court history: royal residents, common visitors, thieves, invaders and ghosts’ PHILIPPA GREGORYFor centuries, Hampton Court has been a place of power, scandal and intrigue: a stage for events that shaped the nation. The Palace raises the curtain on 500 years of British history with royals, politicians, criminals...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2017Born into nobility and married into the royal family, Catherine Howard was attended every waking hour – secrets were impossible to keep. In this thrilling reappraisal of Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Gareth Russell’s history unfurls as if in real time to explain how the queen’s career ended with one of the great scandals of Henry’s reign. This is a grand tale of the Henrician court in its twilight, a glittering but pernic...

A BBC History magazine, Esquire, Historia magazine and Waterstones History Book of the Year'James comes alive in full flamboyance … Russell expertly weaves the bedchamber gossip into the tapestry of a tumultuous reign' SUNDAY TIMES'Brings the backbiting and power struggles of the Jacobean court to life with wit and vigour' OBSERVER‘A warts and all story told with compassion’ PHILIPPA GREGOR...

When the Titanic sank, so did the Edwardian age that created it. In this brilliantly original history, Gareth Russell recasts a tragedy we think we know to explore an era of seismic change.With new research and previously unseen first-hand accounts, Gareth Russell peers through the most famous portholes in the world to follow six travellers. Amongst them, a Jewish-American immigrant, an American movie star, a member of the British nobility, and a titan of ...

DNA. The double helix; the blueprint of life; and, during the early 1950s, a baffling enigma that could win a Nobel Prize. Everyone knows that James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix. In fact, they clicked into place the last piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle that other researchers had assembled over decades. Researchers like Maurice Wilkins (the 'Third Man of DNA') and Rosalind Franklin, famously demonised by Watson. Not forgetting the 'lost heroes' who fought to prove that...