The Cotswolds have featured on a thousand country calendars, but what is the real story behind the picture-perfect rural scene? Jane Bingham reveals a history of privilege & poverty, idyll & conflict, through the eyes of travellers, writers & artists. Lying in the heart of Southern Engl&, the Cotswolds occupy a significant place in the history of the nation. Ancient stone circles & ruined Roman villas provide reminders of a distant past. Fine churches & manor houses survive from the prosperous Middle Ages, & the landscape also bears the scars of Civil War. The home of kings & nobles since Saxon times, the region is famous for its grand estates, while signs of an industrial age can be seen in its mills & factories. After the wool trade reached its peak in the fifteenth century, the fortunes of the Cotswolds suffered a slow decline as its villages sank into picturesque decay. But in the 1890s the region began to experience a remarkable transformation. It was then that William Morris & his followers discovered the area, establishing thriving centres for Arts & Crafts. In the following century, writers & artists moved to the Cotswolds & there followed a steady rise in tourism. Today, the region continues to attract visitors, as well as country-weekenders & celebrities. Observing all these changes, & picturing the landscape, has been a lively company of writers, artists & musicians. Some, like Laurie Lee, belong to a particular place, while others have viewed the Cotswolds as outsiders. In their writings, art & music, they have all celebrated the distinctive, & sometimes surprising, character of the Cotswolds. FAMOUS FIGURES: Elizabeth I at Woodstock; Charles I at Edgehill; Marlborough & Churchill at Blenheim; The Mitford sisters at Swinbrook; Prince Charles at Highgrove; Damien Hirst at Toddington Manor. THE ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT: William Morris at Kelmscott & Broadway; C. R. Ashbee at Chipping Campden: Ernest Gimson & the Barnsley brothers at Sapperton. WRITERS & MUSICIANS: William Shakespeare in the northern hills; Alexander Pope at Cirencester Park; Laurie Lee in the Slad Valley; T. S. Eliot at Burnt Norton; Ralph Vaughan Williams & A. E. Housman on Bredon Hill. ...

Palermo, 1783: The barons pursue their feuds & petty plotting. Their wives indulge in forbidden French novels. & the porcine abbot Vella, eager to curry favour with Naples, `invents` an ancient Arabic chronicle, The Council of Egypt, that enhances the rights of some families, rewriting Sicilian history. Over the ironies of plot & character, hangs the crueller irony of history. In the evocation of a country, its people & its traditions, this is Sciascia`s largest & most vivid canvas. ...

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo & becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure & use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. A huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s, Dumas was inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment when writing his epic tale of suffering & retribution. ...

Imprisoned for a crime he didn`t commit, Edmond Dantes spends fourteen bitter years in a dungeon. When his daring escape plan works he uses all he has learnt during his incarceration to mastermind an elaborate plan of revenge that will bring punishment to those he holds responsible for his fate. No longer the naive sailor who disappeared into the dark fortress all those years ago, he reinvents himself as the charming, mysterious & powerful Count of Monte Cristo. ...

` It`s only after our death that we shall really be able to hear`. The measured tone of hopeless nihilism that pervades ” The Counterfeiters” quickly shatters any image of Andre Gide as the querulous & impious Buddha to a quarter-century of intellectuals. In sharp & brilliant prose a seedy, cynical & gratuitously alarming narrative is developed, involving a wide range of otherwise harmless & mainly middle-to-upper-class Parisians. But the setting could be anywhere. From puberty through adolescence to death, ” The Counterfeiters” is a rare encyclopedia of human disorder, weakness & despair. ...

This beautifully packaged facsimile of Edith Holden s original diary is filled with a naturalist s masterful paintings & delightful observations chronicling the English countryside throughout 1906. As one of the few true records of the time in print, the handwritten thoughts & paintings contained in The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady transport readers to a more refined, romantic, & simpler time. Capitalizing on the current Downton Abbey inspired appetite for Edwardian-era ephemera, fashions, & society, this reproduction brings readers back to a time in which propriety, civility, & an appreciation for the natural world reigned. This souvenir of a bygone era serves not only as a calming touchstone, but a reminder that as long as we choose to see it, we are still surrounded by beauty & grace. Presented to retain the charm & beauty of the original volume filled with Holden s h&-drawn illustrations of the English countryside s flora & fauna through the changing seasons of the year, as well as handwritten notes, observations, "ations, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady makes a lovely addition to any home s library or side table. ...

A stunning new colouring book for adults, that will take you through a year in the life of the English countryside. Nearly ...

It is the early 1960s in a country village in Irel&. Caithleen Brady & her attractive friend Baba are on the verge of womanhood & dreaming of spreading their wings in a wider world; of discovering love & luxury & liquor & above all, fun. With bawdy innocence, shrewd for all their inexperience, the girls romp their way through convent school to the bright lights of Dublin
- where Caithleen finds that suave, idealised lovers rarely survive the real world`
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The Country Girls & its sequels, The Lonely Girl & Girls in their Married Bliss, changed the temperature of Irish literature in the 1960s & inspired generation after generation of readers & writers. The passion, artistry & courage of Edna O` Brien`s vision in these three novels continue to resonate into the twenty-first century
- & they are collected here with a new introduction from Eimear Mc Bride.
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Spanning the architectural history of the country house from the disarming Elizabethan charm of South Wraxall, the classical rigour of Kinross in Scotl&, the majesty & ingenuity of Hawksmoor`s Easton Neston, the Palladian sweep of Wentworth Woodhouse, with over 300 rooms & frontage of 600 feet, the imperial exuberance of Clandeboye, through to the ebullient vitality of Lutyens` Marshcourt, the stories of these houses tell the story of our nation. All are the are buildings of the greatest architectural interest, each with a fascinating human story to tell, & all remain private homes that are closed to the public. But their owners have opened their doors & allowed Dan Cruickshank to roam the corridors & rummage in the cellars as he teases out the story of each house
- who built them, the generations who lived in them, & the families who lost them. Along the way he has uncovered tales of excess & profligacy, tragedy, comedy, power & ambition. & as these intriguing narratives take shape, Dan shows how the story of each house is inseparable from the social & economic history of Britain. Each one is built as a wave of economic development crests, or crumbles. Each one`s architecture & design is thus expressive of the aims, strengths & frailties of those who built them. Together they plot the psychological, economic & social route map of our country`s ruling class in a rich new telling of our island story.
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