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 ...

“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...

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...

For fans of Downton Abbey comes an immersive historical epic about a lavish English manor and a dynasty of rich and powerful women who ruled the estate over three centuries of misbehavior, scandal, intrigue, and passion.Five miles from Windsor Castle, home of the royal family, sits the Cliveden estate. Overlooking the Thames, the mansion is flanked by two wings and surrounded by lavish gardens. Throughout its storied history, Cliveden has been a setting fo...

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...

The fascinating story of the daughter of First Fleet convicts who overcame her humble origins to become the mistress of the grandest home in colonial Sydney.'An astonishing story of lust and love in early colonial Australia, shocking, entrancing and utterly enthralling.' - Sue Williams, author of Elizabeth and ElizabethBorn on Norfolk Island to First Fleet convicts, Mary Ann was destined to become a farmer's wife. Instead, at the age of fou...

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...

On 16 November 2010, the long-awaited engagement of HRH Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton was formally announced, with a London wedding taking place on April 2011. Andrew Morton, the leading royal biographer famous the world over for his million-copy bestselling, authorized biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, has written a full-length biography of William and his new bride Kate. Morton has followed the prince's life since birth and has unrivalled insight into the royal family.

An in-depth look at the lives of the women murdered by the infamous, 19th-century London serial killer.Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly are inextricably linked in history. Their names might not be instantly recognizable, and the identity of their murderer may have eluded detectives and historians throughout the years, but there is no mistaking the infamy of Jack the Ripper.For nine weeks during the au...

On 30 March 1896, a bargeman hooked a parcel from the river Thames at Caversham. Inside the brown paper package was the body of a baby girl - she had been strangled with tape. When two more tiny bodies were found in a carpet bag, the police launched a nationwide hunt for a serial killer. A faint name and address on the sodden wrapping provided Reading police with their first clue. Can Chief Constable George Tewsley and his colleagues catch this heartless baby farmer before more infants mee...

This true crime history of Georgian England reveals the scandalous lives—and unceremonious deaths—of more than 100 women who faced execution.In the last four decades of the Georgian era, 131 women were sent to the gallows. Unlike most convicted felons, none of them were spared by an official reprieve. Historian Naomi Clifford examines the crimes these women committed and asks why their grim sentences were carried out.Women and the Gallows, 1797–1837 ...