England Memoir

In the years before the First World War, a collection of writers and artists—Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey among them—began to make a name for themselves in England and America for their irreverent spirit and provocative works of literature, art, and criticism. They called themselves the Bloomsbury Group and by the 1920s, they were at the height of their influence. Then a new generation stepped forward—creative young people who tantalized their elders with their captivating looks and bold ideas.

William Wilberforce is chiefly remembered as the reformer who campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade in England. He was at the heart of British politics for over 40 years during the inflammatory times of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. He lived just long enough to see the passage of the Act to emancipate all slaves in British territories.

During the spring of 1536 in Tudor England, events conspire to bring down Anne Boleyn, the Queen of England. The coup against the Queen results in the brutal executions of six innocent people - Anne Boleyn herself, her brother, and four courtiers - and the rise of a new Queen. Drawing on 16th-century letters, eye witness accounts, and chronicles, Claire Ridgway leads the listener through the sequence of chilling events one day at a time, telling the true story of Anne Boleyn's fall.

The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary - and literary history. The making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than 10,000.

Overlooking the Thames, the Cliveden mansion is flanked by two wings and surrounded by lavish gardens. Throughout its storied history, Cliveden has been a setting for misbehavior, intrigue, and passion - from its salacious, deadly beginnings in the 17th century to the 1960s Profumo affair, the sex scandal that toppled the British government. Now, in this immersive chronicle, the manor's current mistress, Natalie Livingstone, opens the doors to this prominent house and lets the walls do the talking.

William Wallace; if ever there was a champion in the annals of Scottish history, he was it. Known as a proud Scot who rose through the ranks to challenge the English king, Wallace was a mere man who became larger than life - large enough even for the likes of Mel Gibson to play him in Braveheart for movie-going audiences on the silver screen. But who was William Wallace? What separates the real man from the myth?

Henry VIII, King of England and Ireland in the first half of the 16th century, is one of history’s most famous monarchs for many reasons. He ruled ruthlessly, was quick to cry “treason!” and execute, and equally quick to fall in and out of love. Henry changed the religious fabric of England forever and left his mark on the wider world - but what of the six women he took as his queens? From the regal and capable Catherine of Aragon to the patient and generous Katherine Parr, Henry’s wives represented a range of personalities, goals, beliefs, and influences on the king.

Mary, Queen of Scots continues to intrigue both historians and the general public - but the story of her mother, Marie de Guise, is much less well known. A political power in her own right, she was born into the powerful and ambitious Lorraine family, spending her formative years at the dazzling, licentious court of François I. Although briefly courted by Henry VIII, she instead married his nephew, James V of Scotland, in 1538.

William and Harry was a sensation when it was published a week before Prince William and Kate Middleton's engagement announcement in November 2010. Now the author, a royal insider and the royal correspondent for the Daily Mail, has updated and added crucial material. In addition to providing fascinating insight into the lives and loves of two young men who are very much in the public spotlight worldwide, this updated version now becomes the definitive book that brings their story up to date.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Athelstan: The Making of England by Tom Holland, read by Roy McMillan. The formation of England happened against the odds - the division of the country into rival kingdoms, the assaults of the Vikings, the precarious position of the island on the edge of the known world. But King Alfred ensured the survival of Wessex, his son Eadweard expanded it, and his grandson Æthelstan finally united Mercia and Wessex, conquered Northumbria and became Rex totius Britanniae.

The broadcast that George VI made to the British nation on the outbreak of war in September 1939 - which formed the climax of the multi-Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech - was the product of years of hard work with Lionel Logue, his iconoclastic, Australian-born speech therapist. Yet the relationship between the two men did not end there. Far from it: In the years that followed, Logue was to play an even more important role at the monarch’s side.

Combinando tres facetas fundamentales de la vida de Winston Churchill - su vida privada, su trayectoria políticay bélica, y el contexto histórico en el que ambas se desarrollaron-, Breve Historia de Winston Churchill nos presenta la biografía del político que gobernó Inglaterra durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, pero que, además, luchó en la Guerra del 98, en la Guerra de los Boers, que participó en la Primera Guerra Mundial como Lord del Almirantazgo y asistió al duro proceso de descolonización de Inglaterra.

...And What Do You Do? is a hard-hitting analysis of the royal family, exposing its extravagant use of public money and the highly dubious behaviour of some among its ranks, whilst being critical of the knee-jerk sycophancy shown by the press and politicians. Baker also considers the wider role the royals play in society, including the link with House of Lords reform, and the constitutional position of the monarch, which is important given Prince Charles’ present and intended approach.

Two works by the Roman historian, Tacitus. Agricola is a portrait of Julius Agricola, a governor of Roman Britain, and the first surviving account of the geography, climate, and peoples of Britain. The German tribes of Northern Europe are discussed in Germania.

Edmund Burke is both the greatest and the most underrated political thinker of the past three hundred years. A brilliant 18th-century Irish philosopher and statesman, Burke was a fierce champion of human rights and the Anglo-American constitutional tradition, and a lifelong campaigner against arbitrary power. Revered by great Americans including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Burke has been almost forgotten in recent years.

For over four decades the story of the extraordinary evil that occurred at the Kincora Boys’ Home in East Belfast in the 1970s and the shocking attempts by MI5 to cover it up have haunted our political and social terrain for decades.

This account of the life, sufferings, and escape of a fugitive slave was published in London in 1855 by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. It is the autobiography of a simple, sturdy man who spent 30 years as a slave in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.

Warm, insightful, even at times amusing, Teems's depiction of King James has all the elements of a grand tale - conspiracy, kidnapping, witchcraft, murder, love, despair, loss. Majestie offers an engaging new look at the world's most cherished, revered, and influential translation of Sacred Writ and the king behind it.

While employed as a violinist by the Paris Opera in 1891, Sherlock Holmes discovers many surprises: the reappearance of his great love and a series of bizarre accidents allegedly arranged by the "Opera Ghost", an opponent more than equal to Holmes in cunning.

In December 1832 a farmer found the body of a pregnant young woman hanging near a haystack outside a New England mill town. When news spread that Methodist preacher Ephraim Avery was accused of murdering Sarah Maria Cornell, a factory worker, the case gave the public everything they found irresistible: sexually charged violence, adultery, the hypocrisy of a church leader, secrecy and mystery, and suspicions of insanity. Murder in a Mill Town tells the story of how a local crime quickly turned into a national scandal that became America's first "trial of the century."