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Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a prolific Scots man of letters, a poet, novelist, literary critic and contributor to anthropology. He now is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, St Andrews University and at Balliol College, Oxford. As a journalist, poet, critic and historian, he soon made a reputation as one of the ablest and most versatile writers of the day. Lang was one of the founders of the...
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"Margaret Cavendish, then Lucas, was born in 1623 to an aristocratic family. In 1644, as England descended into civil war, she joined the court of the formidable Queen Henrietta Maria at Oxford. With the rest of the court she went into self-imposed exile in France. Her family's wealth and lands were forfeited by Parliament. It was in France that she met her partner, William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a marriage that made her the Duchess...
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Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
538 pages ; 25 cm
Description
"From their early days as young magazine staffers in London, reviewing romantic entanglements and the latest literary gossip (not to mention ideas, books, and where to lunch), Christopher Hitchens was Martin's wingman and adviser, especially in the matter of the alluringly amoral Phoebe Phelps--an obsession Martin must somehow put behind him if he is ever to find love, marriage, a plausible run at happiness. Other significant figures competing as...
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"In 1995, on a four-hour-delayed train from Manchester to London, J.K. Rowling conceived of the idea of a boy wizard named Harry Potter. Upon arriving in London, she began immediately writing the first book in the saga. Rowling's true-life, rags-to-riches story is as compelling as the world of Hogwarts that she created. This biography details not only Rowling's life and her love of literature but the story behind the creation of a modern classic"--...
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In 1990, Alan Taylor traveled to Arezzo, Italy, to interview one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. That interview evolved into a close friendship between Taylor and Muriel Spark that lasted until her death in 2006. In this intimate, anecdotal, admiring and indiscreet memoir, Taylor charts the course of Spark's life, revealing her as she really was.
Once, Spark commented sitting over a glass of chianti at the kitchen table, that she...
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"Wonderful, and deeply sobering. . . . Lyndall Gordon relates Wollstonecraft's story with the same potent mixture of passion and reason her subject personified."-New York Times Book Review
The founder of modern feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was the most famous woman in Europe and America in her time. Yet her reputation over the years has suffered-until now. Acclaimed biographer Lyndall Gordon mounts a spirited defense of this brilliant,...
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The Chimney Sweeper's Boy is mesmerizing as it probes the dark recesses of the psyche. Vine lures you, clue by clue, into a labyrinth of sexuality, love, and shame. When literary celebrity Gerald Candless suddenly dies, the beautiful facade he has carefully created begins to crumble. Behind the vision of the happy family on the English seashore lie Candless' inexplicable cruelty toward his wife, his manic devotion to his daughters, and the mysterious...
10) No Better Place: Arthur Conan Doyle, Windlesham and Communication with The Other Side (1907-1930)
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Following his second marriage in 1907 Arthur Conan Doyle was looking to the future. The years ahead would see the birth of three children, fresh literary success and the discovery of his new faith. Those same years would also see the First World War, the final adventures of Sherlock Holmes and ridicule from the religious and scientific communities for his beliefs.
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In this investigative narrative, Wilson moves from Dickens' death in 1870 back through his career and childhood trauma being sent to work in a blacking factory at age 12. It's clear that Wilson fully comprehends the many complexities of the wily novelist, public performer, and secret lover. Beginning with the mystery of his death, the author re-creates the last day of the famous novelist's life as he made the habitual hour's journey from his home...
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James Boswell's "The Life of Samuel Johnson" is perhaps the best-known biography in English literature, and it marked a turning point in the art of biography writing. Through Boswell's prose Johnson comes across as a wholly believable man. We do not get just an account of his life, but feel we have been there with Boswell and seen and heard Johnson for ourselves. Boswell revolutionized the art of biography, and was well aware that he was doing so....
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When Charles Dickens died in 1870, The Times of London successfully campaigned for his burial in Westminster Abbey, the final resting place of England's kings and heroes. Thousands flocked to mourn the best recognized and loved man of nineteenth-century England. His books had made them laugh, shown them the squalor and greed of English life, and also the power of personal virtue and the strength of ordinary people. In his last years Dickens drew adoring...
14) One more river
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From an Edgar award–winning author, a crime novel about an English ex-pat on the run from danger is "a wondrous, strange trip through a very fine mind" (The New York Times).
From the critically acclaimed author of the Van der Valk and the Henri Castang mystery series comes a stand-alone crime novel about a man startled out of his placid life in the South of France by a violent attempt on his life.
An aging British crime writer living out his...
15) Will
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"Will Self is one of Britain's best-known contemporary writers, a public intellectual whose novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and translated into over twenty languages. In Will, his first ever memoir, he turns his attention fully to his own self, and in particular his addictions as a young man. An addiction memoir like no other, Will echoes the best of Self's psychedelic fiction, and is one of the most eloquent depictions of the allure...
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Pub. Date
2022.
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"An archive of letters written by the late John le Carre, giving readers access to the intimate thoughts of one of the greatest writers of our time The never-before-seen correspondance of John le Carre, one of the most important novelists of our generation, are collected in this beautiful volume. During his lifetime, le Carre wrote numerous letters to writers, spies, politicians, artists, actors and public figures. This collection is a treasure trove,...
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Series
Miss Buncle trilogy volume 1
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Can one quiet woman's imagination shake an entire village? In this delightful classic of British fiction, the pen truly is mightier than the gossip.
Originally published in 1934 and newly embraced by modern readers, Miss Buncle's Book is a timeless novel of quiet rebellion, unexpected transformation, and the magic of seeing—and being seen. Beloved for its dry humor, unforgettable cast, and loving satire of village life,
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An indispensable memoir by one of the most prominent writers of his generation
Originally published in 1976, Christopher and His Kind covers the most memorable ten years in the writer's life-from 1928, when Christopher Isherwood left England to spend a week in Berlin and decided to stay there indefinitely, to 1939, when he arrived in America. His friends and colleagues during this time included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and E. M. Forster, as...





