Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was the greatest architect Britain has ever known. But he was more than that. A founder of the Royal Society, he mapped the moon & the stars, investigated the problem of longitude & the rings of Saturn, & carried out groundbreaking experiments into the circulation of the blood. His observations on comets, meteorology & muscular action made vital contributions to the developing ideas of Newton, Halley & Boyle. His Invention So Fertile presents the first complete picture of this towering genius: the Surveyor-General of the King's Works, running the nation's biggest architectural office & wrestling with corruption & interference; the pioneering anatomist; the mathematician, devising new navigational instruments & lecturing on planetary motion. It also shows us the man behind the legend. Wren was married & widowed twice, he fathered a mentally handicapped child, quarrelled with his colleagues & fell foul of his employers. He scrambled over building sites & went to the theatre & drank in coffee-houses. The book explores what it was like to be at Oxford during the Commonwealth, as a generation struggled to make sense of a society in chaos; it recreates the tensions which tore apart the court of James II; it brings to life the petty jealousies that formed an integral part of both the building world & scientific milieu of the Royal Society. Above all, His Invention So Fertile makes clear to the general reader & the art historian just why Wren remains a cultural icon
- both a creation & a creator of the world he lived in.
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Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was the greatest architect Britain has ever known. But he was more than that. A founder of the Royal Society, he mapped the moon & the stars, investigated the problem of longitude & the rings of Saturn, & carried out groundbreaking experiments into the circulation of the blood. His observations on comets, meteorology & muscular action made vital contributions to the developing ideas of Newton, Halley & Boyle. His Invention So Fertile presents the first complete picture of this towering genius: the Surveyor-General of the King's Works, running the nation's biggest architectural office & wrestling with corruption & interference; the pioneering anatomist; the mathematician, devising new navigational instruments & lecturing on planetary motion. It also shows us the man behind the legend. Wren was married & widowed twice, he fathered a mentally handicapped child, quarrelled with his colleagues & fell foul of his employers. He scrambled over building sites & went to the theatre & drank in coffee-houses. The book explores what it was like to be at Oxford during the Commonwealth, as a generation struggled to make sense of a society in chaos; it recreates the tensions which tore apart the court of James II; it brings to life the petty jealousies that formed an integral part of both the building world & scientific milieu of the Royal Society. Above all, His Invention So Fertile makes clear to the general reader & the art historian just why Wren remains a cultural icon
- both a creation & a creator of the world he lived in.
...

Traditionally known as the Father of History, the Greek writer Herodotus (c. 484-420 BC), was the first man to tell a story in prose on the scale of the ILIAD & the ODYSSEY. His subject is the war between the Persians & the Greeks but, in order to explain how this war came about, he also describes the rise of the Persian empire & analyses the causes of its conflict with neighbouring states. Despite its remoteness from our own time, this is a fascinating story, told by a great writer. Herodotus has a powerful narrative style & penetrating eye for character. The great men of the age are vividly described & extraordinary details of customs, places & even the weather are sketched in. Herodotus is not merely an historian; he is also a political commentator, a geographer, an anthropologist & a philosopher. Yet events are described swiftly in simple sentences & drama is rarely far away. The continuing relevance of the HISTORIES to our time has been vividly highlighted by the extensive allusions to the book in Michael Ondaatje's novel THE ENGLISH PATIENT. The film of THE ENGLISH PATIENT in which the role of Herodotus' HISTORIES is even more pronounced opens in Britain in March 1997 after colossal success in the US. ...

The Everyman Complete Shakespeare will publish the History plays in two volumes. In volume I are contained Shakespeare's first five history plays: HENRY VI parts I, II & II; RICHARD III & KING JOHN. The text of the plays is accompainied by extensive notes, author chronology, bibliography & a detailed introduction to each play & to Shakespeare's history plays in general by Tony Tanner. ...

' Great Britain? What was that?' asks Simon Schama at the start of this, the second book of his epic three-volume journey into Britain's past. This volume, The British Wars, is a compelling chronicle of the changes that transformed every strand & stratum of British life, faith & thought from 1603 to 1776. Travelling up & down the country & across three continents, Schama explores the forces that tore Britain apart during two centuries of dynamic change
- transforming outlooks, allegiances & boundaries.

From the beginning of the British wars in July 1637, for 200 years battles raged on
- both at home & abroad, on sea & on l&, up & down the length of burgeoning Britain, across Europe, America & India. Most would be wars of faith
- waged on wide-ranging grounds of political or religious conviction. But as wars of religious passions gave way to campaigns for profit, the British people did come together in the imperial enterprise of ' Britannia Incorporated'.

The story of that great alteration is a story of revolution & reaction, inspiration & disenchantment, of progress & catastrophe, & Schama's evocative narrative brings it vividly to life.






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' While Britain was losing an empire, it was finding itself...' The compelling opening words to this volume, The Fate of the ...

' While Britain was losing an empire, it was finding itself...' The compelling opening words to this volume, The Fate of the ...

The name of Giacomo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt (1725-1798), in now synonymous with amorous exploits, & there are plenty of these, vividly narrated, in him memoirs. But Casanova was not just an energetic lover. In his time he was diplomat, business man, trainee priest, traveller, prisoner, magician, confidence trickster, gambler, professional entertainer & chalatan. He financed business projects, organised lotteries, wrote opera libretti & dabbled in high politics. Above all he was an autobiographer of enduring brilliance & subtlety who left behind him what is probably the most remarkable confession ever written. Casanova was a Venetian who explored to the full all the possibilities 18th century Venice offered by way of love & profit before being imprisoned, escaping from gaol, & fleeing from the city to begin travels which took him across Europe. In Moscow & London, Berlin & Constantinople, he met the famous men & women of the time
- Catherine the Great, Voltaire, Louis XV, Rousseau
- & recorded his encounters for the memoirs he wrote in retirement at the end of his life. These memoirs are by turns subtle, touching, thrilling, wonderfully comic & quite irresistible. Although the present edition

Includes:: one third of Casanova's enormous (though unfinished) book, it contains all his major adventures & all is greatest affairs of the heart. ' Casanova is unsurpassed as the recreator of the daily talking interests of 18th century Europe. he ranges from slut to patrician, from closet to cabinet, waterfront to palace.'
- V S PRITCHETT




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