Greenblatt's The Swerve was a codex for understanding the Early Modern period. This biography of Kit Marlowe (cobbler's son, playwright, spy) is similarly sprightly and erudite.
An immersive, rather sinister novel of ambition, success and artistic corruption in 1980s' London. The fourth in his Morning Star series, it nevertheless works well on its own and is a good ... read more
The rich, almost mythological history of the iconic World's End boutique, illustrated with images of the shop and the pop culture icons who frequented it.
A delightful memoir of CT's dance tour from Nova Scotia to Sweden, London and Paris in the late 1930s. It's an unusually funny portrait of pre-war Europe, with a plucky, adventurous young ba... read more
The diminutive guard of Buckingham Palace takes his American cousins on a scurry around London. A facsimile edition of the charming 1967 original. Ages 4-7.
Two of RB's early children's novels - The Strange House and Midnight Adventure - each inspired by his own post-war London childhood, in one handsome edition with Briggs' b&w illustrations an... read more
A mentor to Le Corbusier, Ozenfant was an artist and critic who ran art schools in Paris and London in the 1920s and '30s. Highly regarded, he knew everyone: Leonora Carrington was a student... read more
Mercier, a French journalist, travelled to London in 1780 and began writing his account of his experiences there. (He seems to have felt about London much as we tend to about Paris!). First ... read more
You get the sense that the interviews for this oral history – drawn from several decades of conversations with Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Steve McQueen, Liam Gallagher, Sarah Lucas, Kate M... read more
A languorous pub crawl, illustrated by the inimitable Ardizzone, first published in 1949. Chapters include 'The Regulars', 'The Jug-and-Bottle Bar', 'Barmaids Old and New', 'After Hours'. Wi... read more
A riso- and letterpress pamphlet on the commons of South London: a belt of green space which used to stretch almost uninterrupted from Bostall Heath in the south-east to Putney and Barnes in... read more
On his death in 2014, George Lucas left his diaries - spanning 60 years and pertaining not to his career as a civil servant but to his after-hours pursuits - to their editor.
The embodiment of mens sana in corpore sano rowed across the Channel, swam the Niagara basin twice and became an MP. He and his wife were intimate with the 'Souls'.
One of 1000 limited edition copies, this numbered 284. Extensively researched, with the gallery of prints drawn up by Harriet O'Keeffe, with text by Jonathan Ditchburn. The book itself is in... read more
An outstanding evocation of living in London in the late '70s and early '80s, with its curious mix of modernity and grit, analogue but on the cusp of the digital age.
AS guides us through a period of vast public investment in housing, schools and hospitals while also giving an exemplary portrait of London's teeming political and social scene and those - l... read more
The product of many years' research, this is an amazing book that reconstructs the eleven 'Strand Palaces' which both gave rise to the distinctly English style that emerged in country houses... read more