Showing results for "Life!" in Great Britain

In 10 lectures, award-winning historian Patrick N. Allitt transports listeners to England in the 1840s and 1850s. During those two decades, Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, became one of the most influential people in the country and remains a figure of fascination even today. In fact, the British royal family as we know it wouldn't exist without the private and public actions of this detached, impartial, and upright political figure.

Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.

James Boswell forever changed the genre of biography when he painstakingly transformed a scholarly profusion of detail into a perceptive, lifelike portrait of Dr. Samuel Johnson. James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson reveals a man of outsized appetites and private vulnerabilities and is the source of much of what we know about one of the towering figures of English literature.

Daniel Defoe (1659-1661 to 1731) was an English writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of Captain Singleton is one of his earliest novels. The narrative describes the life of an Englishman, stolen from a well-to-do family as a child and raised by Gypsies, who eventually makes his way to sea.

A poignant, challenging and witty memoir by one of Britain’s most senior journalists about the history of - and resistance to - immigration in the UK. In April 1968, Conservative MP Enoch Powell delivered a speech that was to frame the debate about immigration in the UK for the next 50 years. ‘We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to allow the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents,’ he said. ‘It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.’ Kamal Ahmed was six months old at the time of Powell’s speech.

A biography of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587). She was also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland and reigned over Scotland from December 14, 1542 to July 24, 1567. The author seeks to present an unbiased view of the tragic queen.

The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but these myths and stories also give a very distorted view of the 19th century. The early Victorians were much stranger than we usually imagine, and their world would have felt very different from our own. It was only during the long reign of the Queen that a modern society emerged in unexpected ways.

From the host of The Rest is Classified podcast, this is the secret history of MI6 - from the Cold War to the present day. 'The history of MI6 in the words of real spies' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'The best post-1949 account of British intelligence I have read' SPECTATOR 'As gripping as any novel'...

With a keen eye for the juicy anecdote, Thévoz tells the fascinating and entertaining story of the rise, decline and resurgence of London's private members' clubs, from the late-eighteenth century to the present day. In doing so he looks at cultural and political developments beyond the clubs, revealing how while the clubs may have been products of their city and country, they also exerted significant influence on London, Britain and places far beyond.

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in hotels? Hotels represent nations, hosting visiting monarchs, politicians, and diplomats. Hotels underpin global networks of travel and communication, on which national and international prosperity have increasingly depended since the end of the First World War. Yet hotels are also places where people can be anonymous; where murderers and thieves mix with adulterers and con artists; and where prejudice finds expression in who is refused access, and in the forms of 'service' provided by staff in the lowest-paid roles.

An intimate, myth-shattering new biography of Mary Queen of Scots by a premier historian that draws on a trove of newly discovered sources.Queen of Scots, the first full-scale biography of Mary in more than thirty years, offers a singularly novel, nuanced, and dramatic portrait of one of...

One of the classic volumes of autobiography, My Early Life is a lively and colourful account of a young man's quest for action, adventure and danger. Churchill's schooldays are undistinguished, but he is admitted to Sandhurst and embarks on a career as a soldier and a war correspondent, seeing action in Cuba, in India, in the Sudan - where he took part in the battle of Omdurman, of which he gives us a stirring account - and finally in South Africa.

Richard III is one of the most mysterious figures in English history, and as such is the source of perennial fascination. Comparatively little is known of his early life, his appearance, his interests, for up to 1483 he played second fiddle to his more glorious older brothers, Edward 'this sun of York', and the feckless Clarence. This new edition of a classic royal biography includes an account of the discovery of Richard’s remains in a Leicester car park in September 2012 and what his skeleton revealed about the physical condition of the last Plantagenet and the manner of his death.

The year was 1935: the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a time of wealth and glamour; of lavish balls and evening gowns; of tiaras and a coronation. As personal maid to Lady Coventry, Hilda Newman had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain's most noble families. In her fascinating memoir of life upstairs and down, Hilda takes us back to this period between the wars; a gilded era which would soon be dramatically changed by the Second World War.

Marking the centenary of the Titanic disaster, Titanic Lives is an utterly compelling exploration of the lives on board the most famous ship in history. On the night of 14 April 1912, midway through her maiden voyage, the seemingly unsinkable Titanic hit an iceberg, sustaining a 300-feet gash as...

The sea has captivated people ever since humans first set sail on it; its beauty, its force, the mysteries it holds. For the few who make their living from it, trying to understand it, to second guess its ever-changing moods, creates an addiction to salt water that keeps us coming back. My Fishing Life documents the reality of that life. This book lifts the lid on what it's like to be one of the country's very few female fishermen, and also do justice to an iconic industry that, while it feeds and impacts almost all of us, remains one of our most mysterious and misunderstood.

As former Prime Minister and our longest-serving Chancellor, Gordon Brown has been a guiding force for Britain and the world over three decades. This is his candid, poignant and deeply relevant story. In describing his upbringing in Scotland as the son of a minister, the near loss of his eyesight as a student and the death of his daughter within days of her birth, he shares the passionately held principles that have shaped and driven him, reminding us that politics can and should be a calling to serve.

Guy Mayfield was the Station Chaplain at RAF Duxford during the Battle of Britain. His diary is a moving account of the war fought by the young pilots during that summer of 1940, providing a unique and intimate insight into one of the most pivotal moments in British history. Mayfield frequently spoke to pilots who knew they may not survive the next 24 hours, and his diary provides a vivid account of the fears and hopes of the young men who risked their lives daily for the defence of Britain.

This book is considered by many to be the finest literary biography ever published. Samuel Johnson was the leading literary scholar and critic of his age, helping to define the Augustan Age of English Literature. He is as celebrated for his brilliant conversation as he is for his writing.

What accounts for Shakespeare’s transformation from talented poet and playwright to one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this gripping account, James Shapiro sets out to answer this question, ""succeed[ing] where others have fallen short."" (Boston Globe) 1599 was an epochal year for...