This important 2004 biography of Elgar draws on letters & documents which became available in the preceding twenty-five years. Michael Kennedy a leading scholar of British music & a distinguished musical biographer uses this material which

Includes:: Elgars own vast correspondence in an attempt to get to the centre of the composers complex personality. Elgars letters reveal his unpredictable swings of mood from gaiety & a fondness for puns to morose self-pity & a feeling that he was not wanted & although much of Elgars music sounds confident & coherent it also has an underlying layer of unease melancholy & insecurity. His relationships with his wife & other women friends are a continuing thread in the life of a man who remained acutely conscious of his lower middle-class origins in spite of his meteoric rise to fame honours in Edward VIIs reign & friendship with the King.

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General George Monck is famous for the key role he played in the restoration of the monarchy in 1660
- his actions changed the
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Samuel Johnson was a poet essayist dramatist & pioneering lexicographer but his continuing reputation depends less on his literary output than on the fortunate accident of finding an ideal biographer in James Boswell. As Johnsons constant & admiring companion Boswell was able to record not only the outward events of his life but also the humour wit & sturdy common sense of his conversation. His brilliant portrait of a major literary figure of the eighteenth century enriched by historical & social detail remains a monument to the art of biography. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford Worlds Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxfords commitment to scholarship providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features including expert introductions by leading authorities helpful notes to clarify the text up-to-date bibliographies for further study & much more. ...

Lee Evans is one of the best-loved comedians in the country; a Hollywood star able to sell out arenas in the blink of eye. But he was not always such a roaring success. The Life of Lee" is an utterly hilarious & very moving autobiography charting his ups & downs on the way to the top. Lee takes us on a darkly humorous journey through his childhood spent running wild on a Bristol housing estate his unconventional school days & through a grim teenage period of numerous dead-end jobs. The book also reveals how as a boy Lee got his first taste of showbiz accompanying his entertainer father around the rowdy unforgiving working-mens club & theatre circuit. Desperately struggling to be accepted this quiet young loner always saw himself as an outsider. But he finally met the love of his life & accidentally discovered the one place where he felt at home: the stage." ...

Lee Evans is one of the best-loved comedians in the country; a Hollywood star able to sell out arenas in the blink of eye. But he was not always such a roaring success. The Life of Lee" is an utterly hilarious & very moving autobiography charting his ups & downs on the way to the top. Lee takes us on a darkly humorous journey through his childhood spent running wild on a Bristol housing estate & his unconventional school days when he was publicly derided as a failure by a sadistic teacher. In this brilliantly entertaining & engaging tale he also guides us through a grim teenage period of numerous dead-end jobs. When he was cleaning toilets & plucking turkeys he could never have imagined that one day he would be playing to thousands of adoring fans at the O2 Arena. The book also reveals how as a boy Lee got his first taste of showbiz living out of a suitcase & accompanying his entertainer father around the smoky rowdy unforgiving working-mens club & theatre circuit. Desperately struggling to be accepted this quiet young loner always saw himself as an outsider. But he finally met the love of his life & accidentally discovered the one place where he felt at home: the stage. " The Life of Lee" is a story that is like its subject: compelling touching charming & above all fantastically funny." ...

The Life of Oa Reilly is a chronicle of the career of one of the European PGA Toura s most famous caddies--John Oa Reilly--and ita s full of funny stories as only this Irishman can tell them. Like the one about the time he & some fellow caddies were arrested & jailed in East Germany on their way to the German Open in Berlin. Or the one about the Tour pro who in a fit of temper after a bad shot put his foot through the bottom of his golf bag & could not get it out again! The Life of Oa Reilly is a rollicking ride around the world--and the world of professional golf--by one of the gamea s most interesting characters. No golf library would be complete without it. I hope that youa ll find this book as entertaining as I found Johnny to be throughout our three successful years on tour. There was never a dull moment!" ----Padraig Harrington" ...

Ospreys are one of our best known & best loved birds & the name Roy Dennis is not only synonymous with the successful return of the osprey to Scotland but is also renowned for his international work with a variety of species. From the time he saw his first osprey back in 1960 Roy has worked to help this magnificent raptor establish itself once more in a country where it had been hounded & persecuted to near-extinction over hundreds of years. This book tells the story not only of the osprey but of the osprey watcher following the birds fortunes in Scotland seeing its numbers rise from that single pair in the 1950s to close to 200 pairs today. From a look at its history in Scotland & the rest of the UK including the bad old days of egg thieves & the shooting of birds as specimens it moves to the present day with satellite radios allowing us to follow the every move of the osprey on its migration to Africa & back. Roy has pioneered the building of artificial nests for ospreys which had been instrumental in increasing their numbers & range as well as starting the first European trans-location taking chicks from their nests in the Highlands & releasing them at Rutland Water Nature Reserve in the Midlands. The book also covers the ecology of the osprey with many personal anecdotes & insights. Diary entries give a more immediate feel to the chapters & the worldwide distribution of ospreys is enlivened by that sense of immediacy. Roys writings at a time when no one knew whether or not his lifetimes work would succeed add a sense of history to this personal tale. ...

Alchemists sought gold in it. David Bowie refrigerated it to ward off evil. In the trenches of Ypres soldiers used it as a gas mask whereas modern-day terrorists add it to home-made explosives. All the Fullers Tuckers & Walkers in the phonebook owe their names to it & in 1969 four bags for storing it were left on the surface of the moon. Bought & sold traded & transported even carried to work in jugs urine has made bread rise beer foam & given us gunpowder stained glass Robin Hoods tights & Vermeers Girl With A Pearl Earring. & we do produce an awful lot of it. Humans alone make almost enough to replace the entire contents of Loch Lomond every year. Add the incalculable volume contributed by the rest of the animal kingdom & it might soon displace a small ocean. No wonder it gets everywhere. In Life of Pee Sally Magnusson unveils the secret history of civilisations most unsavoury & unsung hero & discovers how our urine footprint is just as indelible as our carbon one. ...

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena a zebra (with a broken leg) a female orang-utan a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger & Pi
- a 16-year-old Indian boy. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction of recent years. Yann Martels Life of Pi" is a transformative novel a dazzling work of imagination that will delight & astound readers in equal measure. It is a triumph of storytelling & a tale that will as one character puts it make you believe in God."
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After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi a hyena a zebra (with a broken leg) a female orang-utan
- & a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary & best-loved works of fiction in recent years.
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