Historical Memoirs Women

Intentaron quitarle todo cuanto era suyo. Crearon la leyenda de su locura. Y la encerraron durante cuarenta y seis años. Esta es su verdadera historia. Juana de Castilla fue la reina con peor suerte de nuestra historia. Pudo ser la soberana más poderosa de su tiempo: reina de Castilla, León, Granada, Aragón, Navarra, Sicilia y las tierras de ultramar. Pero fue traicionada por todos los hombres de su vida: por su padre, el rey Fernando el Católico; por su marido, el archiduque Felipe el Hermoso, y por su hijo, el emperador Carlos.

The only woman to serve as a soldier in the First World War, the Englishwoman Flora Sandes became a hero and media sensation when she fought for the Serbian Army and pursued a distinguished career in its ranks as officer. This account charts her incredible story.

At 9 a.m. on Wednesday 13th July 1955, Ruth Ellis became the last woman to hang in Britain. Convicted of shooting her unfaithful lover, David Blakeley, in cold blood, as he stood by his sports car on Easter Sunday—the calm and dignified court appearance of this mother of two young children and the furore that accompanied her sentence, ensured that this trial was to have a memorable place in the annals of British justice.

Henrietta Maria is the most reviled consort to have worn the crown of Britain's Three Kingdoms. Condemned as that 'Popish brat of France', a 'notorious whore' and traitor, she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches and turned her husband Catholic—so causing a civil war—and a cruel and bigoted mother. Leanda de Lisle's White King was hailed as 'the definitive modern biography about Charles I' (Observer). Here she considers Henrietta Maria's point of view, unpicking the myths to reveal a very different queen.

Popular biographer Carolly Erickson creates intimate and richly detailed portraits of her historical subjects. In this book she offers a provocative new perspective on Josephine and her fabled marriage to Napoleon.

Originally published in 1991 as a Book of the Month Club Featured dividend and awarded the Best Nonfiction Book by the American Society of Journalists and Authors, this authoritatively researched portrait of Queen Isabella brings to life one of the most controversial figures in European history--a woman who was passionate lover to Ferdinand of Aragon, conquered the Moors (Muslims) of Spain, funded Columbus on his famous journey, brought the Renaissance to Spain, and was hated for introducing the Spanish Inquisition.

Venture into a world marked by two World Wars, where familial bonds and resilient spirits are tested against the challenging tapestry of time. ‘Echoes of Resilience: A Tale of Two Grandmothers’ is a captivating compilation of two autobiographical sketches written by Gertrude Jacobson Hult and Gertrud Beer Trobisch, two women born at the twilight of the 19th century in very different corners of the globe. Their narratives intersect when a divine calling to African missions and an unexpected romance join their families together as Walter, Gertrud Trobisch's son and a former soldier in ...

In the spring of 1939, with the Second World War looming, two determined 24-year-olds, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, decided to open a marriage bureau. They found a tiny office on London's Bond Street and set about the delicate business of matchmaking. Drawing on the bureau's extensive archives, Penrose Halson - who many years later found herself the proprietor of the bureau - tells their story and the stories of their clients.

The extraordinary true story of surviving the unimaginable … In 1945, seven-year-old Barbie and her sister Eva were trapped, terrified, in wartorn Germany. With their father missing, and hundreds of miles from their mother, news of the approaching army left them confronted with an impossible choice: to face invasion, or to flee on foot.Eva, aged nineteen, was determined to find her mother.

Kitty Marion was sent across the country by the Pankhurst family to carry out a nationwide campaign of bombings and arson attacks, as women fought for the vote using any means necessary. But in the aftermath of World War One, the dangerous and revolutionary actions of Kitty and other militant suffragettes were quickly hushed up and disowned by the previously proud movement, and the women who carried out these attacks were erased from our history. Now, for the first time, their untold story will be brought back to life.

Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) defied the conventions of her era. Born and raised on a farm in Oswego, New York, Walker became one of a handful of female physicians in the nation - as well as a passionate believer in the rights of women. She campaigned for women's suffrage and against traditional male-dominated marriage vows, and any issue involving the sublimation of her sex. From the outset of the Civil War, Walker volunteered her services as a physician.

Decía Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) que «donde se celebra matrimonio sin amor, habrá amor sin matrimonio». La historia confirma esa máxima y por eso las aventuras amorosas de los monarcas siempre se contemplaron con una cierta indulgencia. Es evidente que, a día de hoy, las circunstancias han cambiado, pero lo cierto es que la «mujer del rey no siempre es la reina. Así lo demuestran, al menos, las veinte historias de amor que, desde el siglo XIV al XXI, desfilan por estas páginas.

The best-selling revisionist biography of one of the great women of the 16th century. Orphaned in infancy, Catherine de Medici was the sole legitimate heiress to the Medici family fortune. Married at 14 to the future Henri II of France, she was constantly humiliated by his influential mistress, Diane de Poitiers. When her husband died as a result of a duelling accident in Paris, Catherine was made queen regent during the short reign of her eldest son (married to Mary Queen of Scots, and like many of her children he died young).

In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessive colleague in a hotel in South Kensington. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising, but that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable. She was one of Britain’s most daring and highly decorated secret agents, and the intelligence she gathered was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort.

In 1955, the AP thrummed with the news of Lulu Bell Parr's death. The incongruity of her final years as a pauper in a shack with her time as a Wild West star could not be ignored. Then, she was forgotten. Nearly fifty years later, small town history buffs stumbled upon her unmarked grave and set out to give her the recognition she deserved. They raised over seven thousand dollars, erected a monument on her grave (with a parade through town and celebration), and then went on to have her inducted in the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

From living in a tin-roofed shack north of Dar es Salaam to becoming Baroness Park of Monmouth, Daphne Park led a most unusual life - one that consisted of a lifelong love affair with the world of Britain's secret services. In the 1970s, she was appointed to Secret Intelligence Service's most senior operational rank as one of its seven area controllers - an extraordinary achievement for a woman working within this most male-dominated and secretive of organizations.

It is early 20th-century Greece. Theodosia, a teenage girl and her younger sister, lose their parents in Constantinople and are thrown into a massive population exchange between Greece and Turkey. They arrive at a refugee camp in Northern Greece, where their choice is to perish or to use the resources at hand in order to survive. Despite all the difficulties they encounter, the sisters decide not to give up, and fight for a better life. Theodosia's story carries on throughout a century and is peppered with horrific events, likable characters, and a great love story.

During the harshest year of the Great Depression, Lorena Hickok, a top woman news reporter of the day and intimate friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, was hired by FDR’s right-hand man Harry Hopkins to embark upon a grueling journey to the hardest-hit areas of the country to report back on the degree of devastation. Distinguished historian Michael Golay draws on a trove of original sources - including the moving, remarkably intimate, almost daily letters between Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt - as he re-creates that extraordinary journey.

When Jewher Ilham's father, Ilham Tohti, an internationally known advocate for peaceful dialogue between his Uyghur people and Han Chinese, was detained at the Beijing airport in February 2013 on charges of "separatism," and later sentenced to life in prison, Jewher was forced to begin a new life apart from her family in a new country. There, she found her voice as an advocate for her father, and for Uyghur people being forced into concentration camps by the Chinese government.

Charlotte Delbo était une des 230 femmes qui, dans Le Convoi du 24 janvier, partirent en 1943 de Compiègne pour Auschwitz. "Aucun de nous ne reviendra" est, plus qu'un récit, une suite de moments restitués. Ils se détachent sur le fond d'une réalité impossible à imaginer pour ceux qui ne l'ont pas vécue.Charlotte Delbo évoque les souffrances subies et parvient à les porter à un degré d'intensité au-delà duquel il ne reste que l'inconscience ou la mort.