142 Strand was the home of the brilliant, unconventional young publisher John Chapman. All the daring & avant-garde writers & thinkers of Victorian London gathered here, among them Thomas Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, & the scientist Thomas Henry Huxley (Darwin's 'bulldog'), as well as visiting Americans like Emerson, refugees from revolutionary Europe like Mazzini, & radical feminists like Barbara Leigh Smith, later founder of Girton College, Cambridge. They contributed to Chapman's campaigning Westminster Review & attended his lively evening parties. In 1851 Chapman brought Marian Evans
- the future George Eliot
- to London to edit the Review. Her arrival caused rows in the household, which included Chapman's wife & also his mistress.

The Strand was packed with booksellers, magazine publishers, theatres, clubs, & quack doctors. Just behind lay the brothels of Covent Garden & the disreputable pornographers of Holywell Street, while Westminster & the Houses of Parliament were a short distance away. Chapman's circle touched all these worlds, & the vivid story of these unconventional lives & unorthodox views
- marvellously told by Rosemary Ashton
- takes us to the heart of Victorian culture, uncovering its surprising energy, its doubts & arguments, &, above all, its passionate reforming spirit.





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142 Strand was the home of the brilliant, unconventional young publisher John Chapman. All the daring & avant-garde writers & thinkers of Victorian London gathered here, among them Thomas Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, & the scientist Thomas Henry Huxley (Darwin's 'bulldog'), as well as visiting Americans like Emerson, refugees from revolutionary Europe like Mazzini, & radical feminists like Barbara Leigh Smith, later founder of Girton College, Cambridge. They contributed to Chapman's campaigning Westminster Review & attended his lively evening parties. In 1851 Chapman brought Marian Evans
- the future George Eliot
- to London to edit the Review. Her arrival caused rows in the household, which included Chapman's wife & also his mistress.

The Strand was packed with booksellers, magazine publishers, theatres, clubs, & quack doctors. Just behind lay the brothels of Covent Garden & the disreputable pornographers of Holywell Street, while Westminster & the Houses of Parliament were a short distance away. Chapman's circle touched all these worlds, & the vivid story of these unconventional lives & unorthodox views
- marvellously told by Rosemary Ashton
- takes us to the heart of Victorian culture, uncovering its surprising energy, its doubts & arguments, &, above all, its passionate reforming spirit.





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Do you know how to change a tyre? Give a speech? Or shave without leaving a nasty rash? How about ironing a shirt? Urinal etiquette? Or how to know if you are falling in love?

Neither did 24-year-old author Gareth May until he started to gather centuries-old male wisdom for the

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Although 1759 is not a date as well known in British history as 1215, 1588, or 1688, there is a strong case to be made that it is the most significant year since 1066. In the two great battles of 1759, Britain effectively beat France for global supremacy & founded the first British Empire. From the almost uninterrupted series of victories that year came momentous consequences. Victory in the East, in India & the Philippines, which in turn led to the colonisation of Australia & New Zeal&. Victory in North America secured Canada for the empire &, by removing the French, created the conditions which inspired American rebellion. Until now, the story of the causes & consequences of The Seven Years War (1756-63) has been largely obscured. As Thackeray famously remarked in Barry Lindon, it would take a theologian, rather than an historian, to unravel the true causes. Drawing on a mass of primary materials
- from texts in the Vatican archives to oral histories of the North American Indians
- Frank Mc Lynn shows how the conflict between Britain & France triggered the first 'world war', raging from Europe to Africa; the Caribbean to the Pacific; the plains of the Ganges to the Great Lakes of North America, & also brought about the War of Independence, the acquisition by Britain of the Falkland Islands & ultimately, The French Revolution.

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The seventeen months from April 1814 to August 1815 were an extraordinary period in European history; a period which saw two sieges of Paris, a complete revision of Europe's political frontiers, an international Congress set up in Vienna, civil war in Italy & international war in Belgium. Gregor Dallas tells the story of these days through the perspectives of three very different European cities: the great metropolis of London, post-revolutionary Paris & baroque Vienna. The writing is almost cinematic in its power to evoke & bring to life the Europe of Tolstoy: the ebb & flow of power, of armies & of peoples across Europe's northern plains. Working essentially from primary sources, Dallas is as interested in the weather conditions before battle as in the way cartoonists reacted to court intrigues & fashions. It is also Europe seen through the eyes of its central players: Talleyr&, who has served nearly every French regime since the Revolution of 1789; Metternich, who devises new plans for a ' Germany' that does not yet exist & for a ' Europe' that remains devided; Wellington, who reveals himself a diplomat as well as a soldier; Tsar Alexander, an idealist seeking to impose a uniform plan for all Europe; & ' Boney' himself, who has his own ideal of Europe &, though banished to Elba, does not abandon his dream to realise it. ...

On the night of 7 November 1918 French troops at La Capelle, on the Western Front, noticed a soft halo develop in the fog over no man's l&. They heard the rumble of cars, then perceived the vague form of a huge white flag: the Germans were crossing the line to seek peace. But who were these Germans & what exactly did they represent? By the time they had signed an armistice, four days later, not even they knew. The Kaiser's Reich had collapsed & Germany faced chaos, while the war in Eastern Europe continued. This book traces the transition from war to peace across Europe. It follows the movement of armies over the northern plains, their collapse, their demoblization, & the effect this had on the material life of people. In Russia there had already been a revolution. In Germany, there were attempts to overthrow the provisional republican government. In Poland new wars broke out. At the same time, there was celebration in the West at the announcement of the Armistice. & the United States entered European politics with a new part to play. Dallas follows these dramatic events from the perspective of five capitals: Berlin, Paris, London, Moscow & Washington. In Berlin the cabarets & beer halls are open, while there is shooting in the streets. In the walled city of Paris, the peacemakers assemble to respond to the call for a League of Nations. Pantomime season opens in London, where Lloyd George holds elections & reorganizes his War Cabinet; John Maynard Keynes of the Treasury worries about debts. Contemporaries describe Moscow as a scene of desolation; but Lenin insists on setting up the Third International. Washington is divided between those who want to open America to the world, & those who would prefer the world to go away. The start of peace is more complex & fascinating than the start of war; it sets the habits & builds the patterns of life for generations to come. This book weaves politics, ideas, social life, fears, aspirations & harsh realities into a seamless reconstruction of life experienced at a great turning-point of history. ...

It was the year of sex & drugs & rock & roll; it was also the year of the Martin Luther King & Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the Prague Spring, the Chicago convention, the Tet offensive in Vietnam & the anti-war movement, the student rebellion that paralysed France, civil rights, the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, & the birth of the women's movement. With 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, award-winning journalist Mark Kurlansky has written his Magnum opus
- a cultural & political history of that world-changing year of social upheaval, when television's impact on global events first became apparent, & when simultaneously
- in Paris, Prague, London, Berkeley, & all over the globe
- uprisings spontaneously occurred. 1968 encompasses the worlds of youth & music, politics, war, economics, assassinations, riots, demonstrations & the media, & shows us how we got to where we are today.


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It was the year of sex & drugs & rock & roll; it was also the year of the Martin Luther King & Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the Prague Spring, the Chicago convention, the Tet offensive in Vietnam & the anti-war movement, the student rebellion that paralysed France, civil rights, the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, & the birth of the women's movement. With 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, award-winning journalist Mark Kurlansky has written his Magnum opus
- a cultural & political history of that world-changing year of social upheaval, when television's impact on global events first became apparent, & when simultaneously
- in Paris, Prague, London, Berkeley, & all over the globe
- uprisings spontaneously occurred. 1968 encompasses the worlds of youth & music, politics, war, economics, assassinations, riots, demonstrations & the media, & shows us how we got to where we are today.


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1979 takes place in a small fishing town called Musselburgh, situated on the east coast of Scotl&. An evocative, moving & at times hilarious true-life story about growing up gay in a small town, finding out you're adopted, & losing your father at the age of fourteen.

Always an outsider, the Rhona of 1979 was desperate to fit in at any cost, & here lies the bittersweet humour. At the heart of the book is the Clubhouse, a place that symbolises all that is normal, happy, & secure. & behind the club, outside, Rhona & her friends are smoking, fighting, kissing & drinking.

In this darkly funny & deeply biographical first book, Rhona Cameron takes us back to a year when everything seemed to change. A new British government came to power, the Eighties were approaching & at times life felt so precarious that it really looked like she & her family might never make it through the next year, let alone the next decade.



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