Once upon a whisper a wizard made his way from a tall, tall tower to a castle on top of a hill. A mysterious whisper had told him that in the castle was a legendary knight who had helped dragons, monsters & kings. Who could this perfect knight possibly be? Why, Sir Charlie Stinky Socks of course! & he`s looking for adventure. But this is Charlie`s most fearsome quest yet. Along with his cat Envelope & his good grey mare, he must venture along a treacherous track, through a spooky wooky wood & into a deep, dark cave where a mysterious black sack lies. But ogres, scallywags & pirates are lying in wait, ready to thwart Sir Charlie at every turn! ...

Join our brave young knight Sir Charlie Stinky Socks in his bestselling super duper picture book adventure series
- oh my! Sir
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The best-selling children`s picture book about one brave knight & a whole lot of adventure. Once upon a time, there was a deep, dark forest, where monstrous trees groaned, terrible beasties moaned & wiggly woos waited to tickle your toes. Nobody ever went there until... Sir Charlie Stinkysocks, his good grey mare & his pet cat Envelope decide the time has come for a really big adventure. Sir Charlie packs his best sword & his sandwiches & off he goes, over the hills & far away, until he gets to the deep, dark forest. Sir Charlie doesn`t flinch when he meets the beasties, or the dragon, or the wily witch, but when he comes across the princess, he realises he`s met his match! A swashbuckling, funny & charming adventure from best-selling picture book author/illustrator Kristina Stephenson
- an ideal readaloud story to share with your little adventurer.
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In this lively & engaging new biography, Harry Kelsey shatters the familiar image of Sir Francis Drake. The Drake of legend was a pious, brave, & just seaman who initiated the move to make England a great naval power & whose acts of pirac against his country`s enemies earned him a knighthood for patriotism. Kelsey paints a different & far more interesting picture of Drake as an amoral privateer at least as interested in lining his pockets with Spanish booty as in forwarding the political goals of his country, a man who became a captain general of the English navy but never waged traditional warfare with any success. Drawing on much new evidence, Kelsey describes Drake`s early life as the son of a poor family in sixteenth-century Engl&. He explains how Drake dabbled in piracy, gained modest success as a merchant, & then took advantage of the hostility between Spain & England to embark on a series of daring pirate raids on undefended Spanish ships & ports, preempting Spanish demands for punishment by sharing much of the his booty with the Queen & her councillors. Elizabeth I liked Drake because he was a charming rogue, & she made him an integral part of her war plans against Spain & its armada, but she quickly learned not to trust him with an important command: he was unable to handle a large fleet, was suspicious almost to the point of paranoia, & had no understanding of personal loyalty. For Drake, the mark of success was to amass great wealth---preferably by taking it from someone else---and the primary purpose of warfare was to afford him the opportunity to accomplish this. ...

A New Year`s feast at King Arthur`s court is interrupted by the appearance of a gigantic Green Knight, resplendent on horseback. He challenges any one of Arthur`s men to behead him, provided that if he survives he can return the blow a year later. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge & decapitates the knight but the mysterious warrior cheats death & vanishes, bearing his head with him. The following winter Gawain sets out to find the Knight in the wild Northern lands & to keep his side of the bargain. One of the great masterpieces of Middle English poetry, Sir Gawain & the Green Knight magically combines elements of fairy tale & heroic sagas with the pageantry, chivalry & courtly love of medieval Romance. ...

Preserved on a single surviving manuscript dating from around 1400, composed by an anonymous master, Sir Gawain & the Green Knight was rediscovered only 200 years ago, & published for the first time in 1839. One of the earliest great stories of English literature, after Beowulf, the poem narrates the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts the Round Table festivities one Yuletide, casting a pall of unease over the company & challenging one of their number to a wager. The virtuous Gawain accepts, & decapitates the intruder with his own axe. Gushing blood, the knight reclaims his head, orders Gawain to seek him out a year hence, & departs. Next Yuletide Gawain dutifully sets forth... His quest for the Green Knight involves a winter journey, a seduction scene in a dream-like castle, a dire challenge answered
- & a drama of enigmatic reward disguised as psychic undoing.
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In 1845, British explorer Sir John Franklin set out on a voyage to find the North-West Passage
- the sea route linking the Atlantic
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This new edition (the thirteenth) provides a comprehensive description of Sir John Soane`s Museum in London`s Lincoln`s Inn Fields & reflects recent changes to the Museum including the immaculate recreation of the Private Apartments, the Lobby off the Breakfast Room, & the Catacombs, all of which were opened after the previous edition went to press. It will serve both as a souvenir & as the most accurate account of Sir John Soane`s remarkable creation. ...

Sir Joseph Hooker is remembered as an eminent Victorian botanist & one of Charles Darwin`s closest collaborators. Many gardeners & lovers of rhododendrons know of his plant collecting expedition in the Himalayas, but few are aware of his participation in Sir James Clark Ross`s epic voyage to Antarctica in 1839-43, of his to Syria & Lebanon in 1860, to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco in 1871, & to the Rockies & California in 1877. At some risk to his own safety & health he discovered many new species of plants introduced a number of attractive flowers into British gardens. Hooker was also an amateur artist who obsessively sketched landscape, flora &, occasionally, people & buildings. Ray Desmond has written a fascinating biography of a remarkable man. ...

Sir Robert Hunter (1844
- 1913) is one of three figures regarded as the principal founders of the National Trust. It was he who
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