367 Products

Through the story of an elegant art deco villa, the Château de l’Horizon, its owners and guests, Lovell evokes the glamorous lifestyle of the rich and famous on the French Riviera between the 1920s and 1960. Starting with the American actress and society hostess Maxine Elliott, who had the architect Barry Dierks build the house in 1932, the book describes a who’s who of high society, up to the death of Prince Aly Khan, the villa’s owner from 1947 to 1960.

How did the women of Paris survive the grim years of German occupation – and how, in the aftermath of liberation, did they come to terms with their actions? This first in-depth account of the lives of ordinary women in the occupied city charts the experiences of collaborators and resisters, actresses and prostitutes, teachers and writers, Nazis and Jews, in an atmosphere where sex became currency and life-or-death decisions were faced every day.

During the 17th century unprecedented numbers of people left England. They were on their way to new lives in the Caribbean and the North American colonies – but what were their motivations for undertaking such a perilous transatlantic voyage? Using contemporary letters, diaries and court records, Evans tells the personal stories of men and women who left their homeland in search of a fortune, for political and religious reasons or because their desperate poverty meant they had little to lose.

Off-mint.

In her prologue to this much-acclaimed study, Dressler writes of Eigg, ‘From the fierce struggles in clan times to the bleak period of famine and emigration, through to the modern-day fight to maintain a viable crofting community, the island has always been a microcosm of Highland history’. Drawing on oral history, legend and song, and written sources, Dressler’s book covers the story of the island from the coming of the Celts to life on Eigg since the 1997 community buy-out.

Milestones in aviation have always provided a good story and a good photograph, from the daredevil pioneers of powered flight and airship disasters of the early 20th century to the first flight of Concorde in 1969 and Richard Branson's contemporary space plane programme. This selection of 300 images from the Press Association archive mixes war aces, record-breakers and flying firsts to tell the story of aviation.

Murderers brought to justice, jewel thieves with a pigeon accomplice, strange wagers (seemingly a Welsh speciality) and mistranslated bilingual signs: Foster’s entertaining miscellany delves into the quirkier side of Wales and the Welsh.

Happily married, but insolvent, Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1785–1871) and his wife Lucie devised a plan to save their beloved estate: they would divorce and Pückler would go to England to marry an heiress. Based on the prince’s letters reporting his progress to Lucie, this book is a blow-by-blow account of Pückler’s courtships, but also a portrait of Regency England through the eyes of an intelligent, observant and, at one point, lovesick fortune hunter.

The world’s first purpose-built public art gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery opened in 1811 to house a collection of old masters assembled for the deposed king of Poland. Since then, John Soane’s revolutionary building, which incorporates the mausoleum of its founders, has proved vastly influential. This book tells the story of its creation, includes a chronological catalogue of historic images of the gallery, including the original architectural drawings, and charts the modifications it has undergone over the succeeding two centuries.

Before 2012, the Olympic Games had twice been held in London, but sporting festivals in Britain date back centuries earlier – events that encouraged and inspired the foundation of the modern Olympics. This book explores the Much Wenlock and Cotswold Games and other early incarnations, as well as the 1904 and 1948 Games, and the Stoke Mandeville Games, the forerunner of the Paralympic Games.

Founded in 1919, Aerofilms Ltd married the art of photography to the new technology of powered flight to capture Britain as it had never been seen before: from the air. This volume showcases hundreds of the pioneering firm's aerial photographs, many of them rare or previously unseen, and tells how it survived the Great Depression, helped the war effort at the direct request of Winston Churchill, and charted the reconstruction projects of the 1940s and 1950s.

Sheila Rowbotham’s 1986 play Friends of Alice Wheeldon dramatized the trial of a Derby socialist and feminist accused by an undercover agent during the First World War of plotting to kill the prime minister, Lloyd George. This new edition includes a carefully researched historical introduction that describes the interaction between workplace militants and anti-war activists, the intrigues of politicians and the intelligence agencies, and the campaign to clear Wheeldon’s name.

First published in 1905, this illustrated pocket guide offers a fascinating glimpse of London in its Edwardian heyday. Alongside its descriptions of the city’s great monuments are advertisements for gents’ outfitters and details of schools, pubs and omnibus routes.

Sujata Iyengar’s term ‘mythologies of color’ refers to a complex of early modern beliefs surrounding the significance of skin colour, whether white, black, red, green, yellow or transparent. She explores these cultural mythologies in their historical, geographical and literary contexts during the period when colonial expansion and the slave trade introduced Britons to more dark-skinned persons than they had previously encountered.

Historians trawl through documentary records to reveal how people lived in the past, but few actually experience it first-hand. Ruth Goodman, presenter of the BBC TV series Tudor Monastery Farm, has done just that, eating, sleeping, working, dressing and dancing like a Tudor. Drawing on these adventures with characteristic wit and humour, she describes a day in the life of an ordinary person, from dawn to dusk, during one of the most vibrant periods of English history.

Craig Nelson gives a vivid account of the Japanese surprise attack on the American naval and air forces on 7 December 1941, describing the situation in Japan and the US prior to the attack, the immediate result, and its later, unforeseen consequences.

From the moment Columbus gazed on the land he mistook for India, the islands of the Caribbean have been the subject of daydreams and fantasy. This absorbing book, the result of ten years’ travel, strips away the myths to reveal the real Caribbean, a region that has produced some of the world’s most influential artists, activists, writers, musicians and sportsmen, as its people speak for themselves about their home and its place in the world.

As well as wigs, toupees and extensions, there are many uses for and beliefs about human hair. Indian traders call it ‘black gold’; in China a protein derived from it was once used in soy sauce; and in 1920s America there was a craze for using it to make ‘invisible’ hairnets. Anthropologist Emma Tarlo travelled the world to search out the facts and here presents the many remarkable hair-related stories she uncovered.

The moral tone of Britain's elite may have been high in the 19th century but the reality for many of the people living in the world's richest city was squalor, drunkenness, violence and crime. Drawing on contemporary accounts, this tour of Victorian London lifts the lid on the living conditions of the poor and describes some of the capital's most notorious crimes and criminals. Slightly off-mint.

The book that sparked the award-winning TV series details Jennifer Worth’s very real experiences as a young midwife based in a convent amid the chaos of post-war London Docklands. Her true-life stories show how tough conditions were in the East End, especially for women, who often lived in slum accommodation – grateful if they had a cold-water tap – with ten or more children to look after.

As Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, the Queen is seen by many as a calm, reassuring presence in an era of restless change. But what of the institution she represents? This revelatory book takes a glimpse behind the scenes at the machinery that sustains the monarchy today: its constitutional role, its leadership of the Church of England, its finances. It also takes a clear-eyed view of its future, and the pressures that will face an heir to the throne. Slightly off-mint.