She went from socialite to pariah when she married George III's sixth son in 1793, without the King's permission. Her children were declared illegitimate, the family scorned: this is a movin... read more
Indiscreet, independent, and funny, Swire roams from Budleigh Salterton to state banquets at Buckingham Palace... As the daughter of Sir John Nott and wife of a former Chairman of the Conser... read more
The title is part of her 1947 New Year's Eve toast. Openly gay, Highsmith was famously beastly to lovers and friends. This new biography traces connections between her complex character and ... read more
The story of the son of a Parsi-convert vicar near Birmingham who, convicted for mutilating horses and writing threatening letters to the vicar, contacted Conan Doyle to unravel the mystery ... read more
SM's parents were German Jewish refugees; he was raised a Catholic and forbidden to identify as Jewish or German or British. His maternal aunts concealed their origins too and had very diffe... read more
As a young man in Germany, AW's grandfather published Kafka and several other depraved authors whose work the Nazis were keen to burn. He fled in 1933, eventually settling in New York where ... read more
A group biography of five women at Oxford in the early C20th who pioneered the study of remote communities in Siberia, Egypt, New Mexico and Easter Island. The women were Katherine Routledge... read more
A valuable reminder of the remarkable rise and achievements of the uneducated orphan farm boy who became Minister of Labour during WW2, and one of the prime architects of West Germany, NATO ... read more
Cairncross differed from the other Cambridge spies in his political outlook and motivation; he didn't work closely with any of them. Suspected as the 'Fifth Man', his identity was confirmed ... read more
A skilful, moving ‘jeu d’esprit‘ turns about the life of the poet, the nature of his work, and the author’s preoccupation with him over several decades. It contains as much fiction a... read more