From long-haired 'Fleshly Poets' to intense, 'ultra pre-Raphaelite' artists, few stylistic movements in the history of art and literature have provoked the imagination and indignation of British playwrights as much as the Aesthetic Movement.During an intense and short-lived period from 1877 to 1881, the London stage saw fierce competition as playwrights and theatre managers raced to capture the zeitgeist, capitalizing on the unorthodox, eccentric and highly theatri...

A beautifully illustrated art history and cultural biography, The Street of Wonderful Possibilities focuses on one of the most influential artistic quarters in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – London’s Tite Street, where a staggering amount of talent thrived, including James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Oscar Wilde and John Singer Sargent.For Wilde, the street was full of ‘wonderful possibilities’, while for Whistler it was ‘the birthplace of art’, where a n...

The definitive, groundbreaking biography of John Singer Sargent, the great American artist of the Gilded Age.John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) is one of the most famous American artists of all time, yet his personal life and character have remained elusive more than a century after his death. Today, as Sargent’s reputation reaches new heights, the man—restless, deceptively daring, and shrouded in secrecy—is ripe for reappraisal.Beyond Beauty delves i...

The basis for the hit TV show Mr SelfridgeIn 1909, the largest department store in London's West End, designed and built from scratch, opened in Oxford Street in a glorious burst of publicity. The mastermind behind the façade was American retail genius Harry Gordon Selfridge: maverick businessman, risk-taker, dandy and one of the greatest showmen the retail world has ever known.His talents were to create the seduction of shopping, and as his succes...

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...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERVenture behind closed doors to uncover the secrets of life in the English country house between the wars – in all its splendour.During the 1920s and 1930s, as the sun set slowly on the British Empire, England's stately homes concealed worlds both opulent and ordinary, noble and viscious. This was a life draped in myth, hidden behind stiff upper lips and film-star smiles.Drawing on hundreds of memo...

The first major biography of Oscar Wilde in thirty years, and the most complete telling of his life and times to date.NOMINATED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2019'The Book of the Year, perhaps of the decade' TLS'Simply the best modern biography of Wilde... A terrific achievement' Evening Standard'Page-turning... Vivid and desperately moving. However much you think you know ...

Shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize; former prime minister John Major takes a remarkable journey into his own unconventional family past to tell the richly colourful story of the British music hall.Music hall was one of the glories of Victorian England. Sentimental, vulgar, but patriotic and champion of the underdog, it held a mirror to the audiences’ hopes, fears and the general absurdity of life.Vast, smoke-filled auditoriums were packed every night throughout Britain....

A delightful and fascinating social history of Victorians at leisure, told through the letters, diaries, journals and novels of nineteenth-century men and women, from the author of the bestselling ‘The Victorian House’.Imagine a world where only one in five people owns a book, where just one in ten has a knife or a fork – a world where five people out of every six do not own a cup to hold a hot drink. That was what England was like in the early eighteenth century. Yet by the close ...

Bestselling author Christopher Winn takes us on a captivating journey around London to discover the unknown tales of our capital's history. Travelling through the villages and districts that make up the world's most dynamic metropolis I Never Knew That About London unearths the hidden gems of legends, firsts, inventions, adventures and birthplaces that shape the city's compelling, and at times, turbulent past.See the Chelsea river views that inspired Turner in his final ye...