Peggy, Mike, Nora & Jack have been invited to the kingdom of Baronia for the holidays! In their friend Prince Paul`s home, hidden away in the heart of the mountains, they stumble into their greatest adventure yet. Can the children defeat the robbers in the Secret Forest? ...

Walker Illustrated Classics is a new series which brings together some of the best-loved stories ever told, illustrated by some of today's finest artists. These exquisitely designed books, with their magnificent words & glorious pictures, are a pleasure to read
- & re-read. The classics have never looked so good! When orphan Mary Lennox arrives from India to live with her uncle, everyone at Misselthwaite Manor thinks her a most disagreeable child. Then one day she discovers a secret garden, locked & hidden for ten years. With the help of Dickon & her spoilt, invalid cousin, Colin, Mary brings the garden back to life; & as she does, the mystery behind it is revealed. An instant classic, The Secret Garden has been cherished by generations of readers since its publication in 1911. Beautifully illustrated by Inga Moore.
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When spoiled rich girl, Mary Lennox, is orphaned, she is shipped from India to live in her uncle`s enormous manor in faraway Engl&, where all is not quite as it seems. Before long, the lonely Mary finds a key to a secret garden that has been left untouched for ten years, & a whole new world of enchantment opens up to her. For the first time she learns to make friends
- with the talented animalcharmer, Dickon, & her sickly cousin, Colin
- & between them, the three children truly flourish as the garden reveals its haunting secrets -

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” The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical novel for adults & children alike `I`ve stolen a garden, ` she said very fast. ” People never like me & I never like people, ” Mary thought.` After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle`s gloomy mansion Misselthwaite Manor, on the wild English moors. Everybody says she is the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It is true, too. Mary is pale, spoilt & quite contrary. But she is also horribly lonely & has no one to play with. Then one day she hears about a secret garden in the grounds of the Manor that no one is allowed to enter; it has been kept locked & hidden for years. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed
- & a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. & when a friendly robin helps Mary find the key, she discovers the most magical place anyone could imagine... Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) was born in Manchester. She had a very poor upbringing & used to escape from the horror of her surroundings by writing stories. In 1865 her family emigrated to the USA where she married & became the successful author of many children`s books including ” Little Lord Fauntleroy” & ”A Little Princess”.
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” The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical novel for adults & children alike `I`ve stolen a garden, ` she said very fast. ` It isn`t mine. It isn`t anybody`s. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don`t know.` After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle`s gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely & has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed
- & a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. Slowly she turns the key & enters a world she could never have imagined. With a heartwarming introduction by Sophie Dahl. A behind-the-scenes jounrey, including an author profile, a guide to who`s who, activities & more.. .a much-loved classic. Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) was born in Manchester. She had a very poor upbringing & used to escape from the horror of her surroundings by writing stories. In 1865 her family emigrated to the USA where she married & became the successful author of many children`s books including ” Little Lord Fauntleroy” & ”A Little Princess”.
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Discover paradise
- through a break in a hedge, at the end of a brambly path, on the other side of an old stone wall. So close,
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Truly deserving of the accolade ” Modern Classic”, Donna Tartt`s novel ” The Secret History” is a remarkable achievement
- both
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Hatfield's Herbal is the story of how people all over Britain have used its wild plants throughout history, for reasons magical, mystical & medicinal. Gabrielle Hatfield has drawn on a lifetime's knowledge to describe the properties of over 150 native plants, & the customs that surround them: from predicting the weather with seaweed to using deadly nightshade to make ladies' pupils dilate appealingly, & from ensuring a husband's faithfulness with butterbur to warding off witches by planting a rowan tree. Filled with stories, folklore & remedies both strange & practical, this is a memorable & eye-opening guide to the richness of Britain's heritage. ...

Georgian London evokes images of elegant buildings & fine art, but it was also a city where prostitution was rife, houses of ill repute widespread, & many tens of thousands of people dependent in some way or other on the wages of sin. The sex industry was, in fact, a very powerful force indeed, & in The Secret History of Georgian London, Dan Cruickshank compellingly shows how it came to affect almost every aspect of life & culture in the capital. Examining the nature of the sex trade, he offers a tantalising insight into the impact of prostitution to give us vivid portraits of some of the women who became involved in its world. & he discusses the very varied attitudes of contemporaries
- those who sympathised, those who indulged, & those who condemned. As he powerfully argues, these women, & many thousands like them, not only shaped eighteenth-century London, they also helped determine its future development.
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In the early hours of an August morning a gunfight broke out in an Italian restaurant in Duisburg; in less than five minutes over seventy shots were fired into the bodies of six men. Both victims & assassins were members of the ` Ndrangheta crime organization; Calabria`s Mafia had extended the savage tentacle of its influence outside Italy for the first time. For the men of the ` Ndrangheta, time is still measured in hour-glasses & honour may only be washed with blood. Petra Reski dispels the Hollywood romance surrounding the Mafia to reveal the huge & menacing force lurking everywhere
- from street corner to parliament offices, construction site to corporate headquarters
- & involved in everything from petty extortion to the disposal of nuclear waste. Reski`s searing portrait of the criminals who have come to control not only Italy but vast swathes of Europe, is a journalistic tour de force.

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