Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White" the first Victorian 'sensation novel' & one of the earliest mystery novels in English weaves multiple narratives into a thrilling & suspenseful tale of mistaken identity & dark desires. This " Penguin Classics" edition is edited with notes & an introduction by Matthew Sweet. The " Woman in White" famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde & his 'charming' friend Count Fosco the ' Napoleon of crime' who has a taste for white mice vanilla bonbons & poison. Pursuing questions of identity & insanity along the paths & corridors of English country houses & the madhouse " The Woman in White" is the first & most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism. Matthew Sweet's introduction explores the phenomenon of Victorian 'sensation' fiction & discusses Wilkie Collins's biographical & societal influences. Included in this edition are appendices on theatrical adaptations of the novel & its serialisation history. Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was born in London in 1824 the eldest son of the landscape painter William Collins. In 1846 he was entered to read for the bar at Lincoln's Inn where he gained the knowledge that was to give him much of the material for his writing. From the early 1850s he was a friend of Charles Dickens who produced & acted in two melodramas written by Collins " The Lighthouse" & " The Frozen Deep". Of his novels Collins is best remembered for " The Woman in White" (1859) " No Name" (1862) " Armadale" (1866) & " The Moonstone" (1868). If you enjoyed " The Woman in White" you might like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Study in Scarlet" also available in " Penguin Classics"." ...

Part of Penguins" beautiful hardback " Clothbound Classics" series designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith these delectable & collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. " The Woman in White" famously opens with Walter Hartrights eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde & his charming friend Count Fosco who has a taste for white mice vanilla bonbons & poison. Pursuing questions of identity & insanity along the paths & corridors of English country houses & the madhouse " The Woman in White" is the first & most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism." ...

In one moment every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop. Gentle art teacher Walter Hartright has fallen in love with his student Laura. But she is marrying the wicked Sir Percival who wants to destroy her reputation & steal her fortune. In the face of his powerful friends only Lauras resourceful sister Marian & faithful Walter can save her from his wicked machinations & the terrors of the insane asylum. But who is the mysterious woman in white who haunts the moonlit roads & hidden graveyards? & will her secret save Laura
- or destroy them all?
...

Wilkie Collins is a master of mystery & The Woman in White is his first excursion into the genre. When the hero Walter Hartright on a moonlit night in north London encounters a solitary terrified & beautiful woman dressed in white he feels impelled to solve the mystery of her distress. The intricate plot is peopled with a finely characterised cast from the peevish invalid Mr Fairlie to the corpulent villain Count Fosco & the enigmatic woman herself ...

Contrary opinionated & headstrong Becky Collins
- daughter of Charlotte Lucas & Mr. Collins
- has always defied her staid upbringing

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Staged in 1893 when Wilde had already achieved fame wealth & notoriety A Woman of No Importance was another attempt to fuse comedy of manners with high melodrama. Gerald Arbuthnot is a young man on the make with an American heiress & the post of secretary to the brilliant but dissolute Lord Illingworth within his reach. When he asks his mother to celebrate with them it turns out that Illingworth is Gerald's father who seduced & abandoned his mother twenty years earlier. Loyalty weighs heavier than ambition & Gerald declines the association with Illingworth. This edition which also analyses Wilde's various drafts & revisions of the play argues that the playwright here continued to explore the rivalry between an older man & woman for the affection of a beautiful young man. ...

A poignant touching & epic tale of lost love set against the drama & danger of World War Two 1947. One wet & chilly November afternoon a woman stands at the edge of a lake forced into a heartbreaking choice between her past & her future. 2008. Police diver Martha makes an incredible discovery in a local lake of a package containing a series of lost mementoes which reveal a story of intrigue betrayal & heartbreak. As the threads of the past & present are drawn together Martha's world & that of her family is changed for ever. ...

The unputdownable multi-million copy bestseller charting the rags to riches story of Emma Harte. In 1905 a young kitchen maid leaves Fairley Hall. Emma Harte is sixteen single & pregnant. By 1968 she is one of the richest women in the world ruler of a business empire stretching from Yorkshire to the glittering cities of America & the rugged vastness of Australia. But what is the price she has paid? A Woman of Substance is as impossible to put down as it is to forget. This multi-million copy bestseller is truly a novel of our times. ...

For the first time ever a fascinating look at the remarkable life of Barbara Taylor Bradford. From the cobbled streets of Yorkshire to the sweeping avenues of Manhattan Barbara's own story is as dramatic a tale as any one of her bestsellers. Barbara Taylor Bradford's rise to fame & fortune was a difficult one. But from an early age her mother marked her out for glory
- at any cost. The drive & ambition instilled in Barbara were to reap huge rewards. From humble beginnings in Yorkshire she took London's Fleet Street by storm. & then with the creation of Emma Harte the unforgettable heroine of her first novel A Woman of Substance she inspired women the world over
- & became one of the world's bestselling authors. This is the first time that Barbara Taylor Bradford has been involved in a memoir of any kind & this unique collaboration has produced an extraordinary story. For Emma Harte's rise from Edwardian kitchen maid single & pregnant to one of the richest women in the world uncannily mirrors Barbara's own family history
- something which was as much of a shock to Barbara as it will be to her millions of fans... An incredible story of suffering loss & triumph over adversity not to be missed.


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His first book The Great Immigration Scandal" (2004) blew the whistle on abuses within the Home Office & led to the resignation of the immigration minister Beverley Hughes. Although attacked at the time by the government & the liberal media for alarmism Moxons analysis has now been adopted by most of the major political parties. Indeed his views on the dangers of multiculturalism were even echoed by the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality leading the Evening Standard to claim Moxon appears not so much a racist as a visionary. But immigration was never his primary interest in fact he joined the Home Office in order to study its HR policy as part of a decade-long investigation of men-women. This book is the result. Notwithstanding its provocative title " The Woman Racket" is a serious scientific investigation into one of the key myths of our age
- that women are oppressed by the patriarchal traditions of Western societies. Drawing on the latest developments in evolutionary psychology Moxon finds that the opposite is true
- men or at least the majority of low-status males
- have always been the victims of deep-rooted prejudice. As the prejudice is biologically derived it is unconscious & can only be uncovered with the tools of scientific psychology. The book reveals this prejudice in fields as diverse as healthcare employment family policy & politics: compared to the long & bloody struggle for universal male suffrage women were given the vote in an historical blink of the eye."


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