We are familiar with Sonia, but Orwell's remarkable first wife is usually overlooked. The author of a poem called 'End of the Century, 1984' (published in 1934), she was with him through the... read more
Most lives are untidy, and mine is no exception... She made herself a success in Fleet Street when journalism was still a very male domain, edited Elizabeth David and inspired the look - if ... read more
This is the first publication of Hugh Trevor-Roper's private journal of his visit to the People's Republic of China in 1965, shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. It also d... read more
A labour of love and scholarship, this is a study of the extraordinary Royal Library of Dom Joao V (1706-1750) of Portugal that was destroyed in 1755 in the Lisbon earthquake. The library co... read more
A fascinating account of the gradual triumph of one method of sorting data, from the Great Library of Alexandria to the present decline in our digital age.
A superb narrative of the 'underside' of the Italian Renaissance: the Genoese and Neapolitans; the women writers, Jewish merchants, mercenaries, engineers, prostitutes, farmers and citizens ... read more