A dynamic tale of art and friendship, set between the World Wars, against the backdrop of a rapidly changing worldEric Ravilious is one of the best-known twentieth-century English artists. For many, his watercolors capture the spirit of midcentury England. But while he had a style of his own, he did not work in isolation; he worked within a network of artists that included fellow students at the Royal College of Art such as Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Enid Mar...

In recent years Eric Ravilious has become recognized as one of the most important British artists of the 20th century, whose watercolours and wood engravings capture an essential sense of place and the spirit of mid-century England. What is less appreciated is that he did not work in isolation, but within a much wider network of artists, friends and lovers influenced by Paul Nashs teaching at the Royal College of Art Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Enid Marx, Tirzah Garwood, Percy Horton,...

From an acclaimed social and architectural historian, the tumultuous, scandalous, glitzy, and glamorous history of English country houses and high society during the interwar periodAs WWI drew to a close, change reverberated through the halls of England's country homes. As the sun set slowly on the British Empire, the shadows lengthened on the lawns of a thousand stately homes.In The Long Weekend, historian Adrian Tinniswood introduces us to the tu...

Jeremy Paxman's unique portrait of the Victorian age takes readers on an exciting journey through the birth of modern Britain. Using the paintings of the era as a starting point, he tells us stories of urban life, family, faith, industry and empire that helped define the Victorian spirit and imagination.To Paxman, these paintings were the television of their day, and his exploration of Victorian art and society shows how these artists were chronicling a world changing before their ...

The Empress of Crime's life was the ultimate detective story – revealed for the first time in this forthright and perceptive biography.While Ngaio Marsh had a flamboyant public persona, she was fiercely protective of her private life. And no one knows better how to cover tracks with red herrings and remove incriminating evidence than a crime fiction writer…This fascinating biography of Ngaio Marsh pieces together both the public and private Marsh in a way that is as rivetin...

Why did London Underground once employ a one-legged man to ride up and down the escalators at Earl's Court tube station? What did Hitler plan to do with Nelson's Column? Why is London's only medieval mummy a prostitute named Clarice la Claterballock? How did a beer flood in Tottenham Court Road drown nine people? Where can you see a pair of Queen Victoria's knickers?Containing chapters covering London past and present; buildings and streets; famous and unexpected Londoners; arts, li...

John Constable was the first English landscape painter to take no lessons from the Dutch. He is rather indebted to the landscapes of Rubens, but his real model was Gainsborough, whose landscapes, with great trees planted in well-balanced masses on land sloping upwards towards the frame, have a rhythm often found in Rubens. Constable’s originality does not lie in his choice of subjects, which frequently repeated themes beloved by Gainsborough. Nevertheless, Constable seems to belong to a ne...

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW’ S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARA Best Book of the Year: San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle TimesWinner of the Plutarch Award for Best BiographyThe acclaimed biographer of Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf gives us an intimate portrait of one of the most quietly brilliant novelists of the twentieth century.Penelope Fitzgerald was a great English writer whose career didn't begin until sh...

"Brings literature lovers on a journey through London, from Chaucer in the fourteenth century to present day . . . as diverse as the city itself." — British Heritage TravelMany of the greatest names in literature have visited or made their home in the colorful and diverse metropolis of London. From Charles Dickens to George Orwell, Virginia Woolf to Bernadine Evaristo, London's writers have brought the city to life through some of the bes...

Ann Treneman, the award-winning Times writer best known for her incisive parliamentary sketches, has branched out - to graveyards. In this riveting book she takes you to the most interesting graves in Britain. You'll meet the real War Horse, the best 'funambulist' ever, Byron and his dog Boatswain, Florence Nightingale and her pet owl Athena, prime ministers, kings and queens, highwaymen, scientists, mistresses, the real James Bond and, of course, M. Then there are writers, painters, poets...

Alasdair Gray is Scotland's best known polymath. Born in 1934 in Glasgow, he graduated in design and mural art from the Glasgow School of Art in 1957. After decades of surviving by painting and writing TV and radio plays, his first novel, the loosely autobiographical, blackly fantastic Lanark, opened up new imaginative territory for such varied writers as Jonathan Coe, A.L. Kennedy, James Kelman, Janice Galloway and Irvine Welsh. It led Anthony Burgess to call him...

Connecting people with places, London's distinctive Blue Plaque scheme highlights the buildings where some of the most remarkable men and women in our history and culture have lived and worked.From Gertrude Bell to Karl Marx, Charlie Chaplin to Jimi Hendrix, this fully updated 5th edition of The London Blue Plaque Guide has over a thousand entries and provides an essential companion to the famous people who have made their homes in the city. As the definit...