Showing results for "Red" in Great Britain

John Gaunt was the son of Edward III, brother to the Black Prince, father to Henry IV, and the sire of all those Tudors. He has had pretty bad press: supposed usurper of Richard II’s crown and the focus of hatred in the Peasants’ Revolt, as they torched his home, the Savoy Palace. Helen Carr paints a complex portrait of a man who held the levers of power on the English and European stage, passionately upheld chivalric values, pressed for the Bible to be translated into English, and patronized the arts.

The terror and purges of Stalin's Russia in the 1930s discouraged Soviet officials from leaving documentary records, let alone keeping personal diaries. A remarkable exception is the unique diary assiduously kept by Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to London between 1932 and 1943. This selection from Maisky's diary grippingly documents Britain's drift to war during the 1930s, appeasement in the Munich era, negotiations leading to the signature of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact....

Brought to you by Penguin. George Mikes's perceptive manual for everyone who longs to attain True Britishness provides a complete guide to the British Way of Life. Having been born in Hungary, he eventually spent more than forty years in the field, and the fruits of his labour include insights...

How Labour took power and what they're doing with it 'Taken As Red stands out for its balance and the depth of its reporting' The Guardian 'Revelatory and insightful.' Tim Shipman In Taken As Red acclaimed political journalist Anushka Asthana takes us behind the scenes of the 2024 general...

A gripping history of the Security Service and its covert surveillance on British writers and intellectuals in the twentieth century.

Written by the Officer Commanding and former Red 1 Team Leader, Wing Commander David Montenegro, and full of never-before-shared tales from pilots past and present, this thrilling history is both a faithful record and a fascinating account of not only what it takes, but what it means, to be a Red Arrow.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From bestselling historian Saul David, a riveting new history of the British airborne experience across the Second World War. The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. Created at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940...

The soldiers of one of the world's most famous fighting forces, the Paras, tell the gripping story of the regiment in their own words. Published to coincide with 75th anniversary of its formation, this is the definitive history of the iconic Parachute Regiment, told through the voices of more...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Crusaders and a top authority on the historical events that inspired Game of Thrones, a vivid, blood-soaked account of one of the most famous rebellions in history—the first mass uprising by the people of England against their feudal masters. ...

'Dr. Crippen, Lover and Poisoner' is Le Queux's account of the case of the famous poisoner Hawley Harvey Crippen, whom Le Queux claimed to have met personally on several occasions. Crippen, to escape the bondage of an unhappy marriage, and because he had fallen in love with another woman, Ethel Le Neve, murdered and dissected his wife and escaped with his lover in disguise, sparking a transatlantic hue and cry.

The Secret of the Moat Farm is Wallace's account of a real-life murder mystery which he had covered as a young journalist. Camille Holland, a spinster of 56, became enamoured of an attractive scoundrel named Dougal. When the two moved into the remote Moat Farm, it was not long before Miss Holland disappeared. Dougal remained at the farm, spending Miss Holland's money and entertaining a series of mistresses...until finally suspicions were aroused.

'The Green Bicycle Mystery' is Jepson's account of a true unsolved murder case. Bella Wright was found lying dead beside her bicycle on a lonely country lane in Leicestershire. She had been shot through the head. The last person seen in her company was a man on a green bicycle. When months later a green bicycle is dredged from a canal, the police are hot on the track of the mystery man.

The "Mary Celeste" (or Marie Celeste as it is wrongly referred to several writers) was a British merchant brigantine. The ship is best known for having been discovered on 5 December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean, unmanned and apparently abandoned, although the weather was fine, the ship intact and her crew experienced and capable seamen. The "Mary Celeste" was in sound and seaworthy condition and was under full sail heading for the Strait of Gibraltar.

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle (1876 – 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari, was a Dutch exotic dancer who was convicted of being a spy and executed by firing squad in France during the first World War. Sir Basil Home Thomson, KCB (1861 – 1939) was a British intelligence officer, police officer, prison governor, colonial administrator, and writer.

In March 1873 Great Britain was rocked by the forgery case of the century, perpetrated against no less than the Bank of England. Four criminal brains took on the entire financial system... and would have got away with it too, had it not been for one tiny detail.

The extraordinary story of Robert Jeffrey who was press-ganged into the Royal Navy in 1808 at the age of 18. On his first voyage on board the Recruit under the strict Captain Lake, Jeffrey gave in to temptation and stole a sip of rum. For this he was clapped in irons for two days and then given two dozen lashes. A few days later however, he drank two quarts of spruce beer belonging to the midshipmen. For this repeat misdemeanor, Captain Lake ordered him to be put ashore on a barren rock on the outskirts of the Leeward Islands.