The result is a brilliant, lively, intimate exchange of letters, sharing of opinions on past and contemporary culture, and Bernhardt's reflections on her career, friends, motherhood, lovers, money and fans. Though the letters are imaginary, the real woman, Sarah Bernhardt dominated the stage not only in her native France, but throughout the world for sixty years, literally until the week she died in 1923.

    Nikki McArthur aka ‘A mother in France’ opens up a window to her world and invites you to journey with her through the positive and negative experiences of the process of moving, settling, making a living and raising a family in a new country. Woven within the pages of the family’s experiences are a treasury of facts and information making it not only a fascinating read but a useful guide to living in France.Uncovering the thought processes behind why the family decided to move to France and how they went about it, the book reveals how to prepare for a move abroad, house hunting tips and the buying process. Discover what it was like when they arrived, the main difficulties and challenges they faced with settling in as a family, renovation challenges and experiences of developing a business and making a living. Follow the ups and downs of family life in France from pregnancy and childbirth through to adulthood with fascinating details on education, health, cultural differences and raising bilingual children. An intriguing mixture of facts backed by true life experiences and comparisons and a compelling read for anyone interested in or considering moving abroad.

    But in 19th century France, one courtesan created sensation not only through the scandalous deeds that sprung from her lifestyle but also through her death. Yet, what her contemporaries didn’t know was that her fame wasn’t born thanks to her beauty, but from a woman’s utter determination to overcome a childhood of endless torture, abandonment, and mistreatments; from a soul's desperate need to forget her past. The story of Marie Duplessis, the woman behind masterpieces such as Alexandre Dumas Fils' The Lady with the Camellias and Verdi's Traviata, is the story of a peasant girl who surpassed all suppressions her era imposed on its women, to become one of the most famous individuals 19th century Europe had ever known.

    His womanising and frank admissions of doping appalled 1960s French society, even as his five Tour de France wins enthralled it. Paul Fournel was besotted with him from the start ("Too young to understand, I was nevertheless old enough to admire") and followed Anquetil's career with the passion of a fan and the eye of a poet. In this stunningly original biography of a complex and divisive character, Fournel - author of the seminal Vélo (or Need for the Bike) blends the story of Anquetil's life with scenes from his own, to create a classic of cycling literature.

    gorgeous glitter with a high price tag. On a winter’s day it is beautiful, but on a spring day after bud burst it spells devastation. For Sean and Caro Feely, a couple whose love affair with wine and France has taken them through financial and physical struggle to create their organic vineyard, it could spell the end. Until they receive an unexpected call that could save their skins… This book is about life, love and taking risks, while transforming a piece of land into a flourishing vineyard and making a new life in France.

    Social work was uncharted territory at the time, and Britain was very much worse for wear - TB, polio, measles and whooping cough were just some of the hazards new babies faced. Social conditions could also add to the problems, at a time when poverty and alcoholism were rife. Armed with only her nursing training, her common sense and a desire to serve, Molly set out to win over a community and provide a new and valuable service in times of great change. As well as the challenges there was also joy and laughter, from the woman who finally had a baby after fifteen years of trying, to the woman who thought she should use marmalade as nappy cream, because the hospital had never taken the label off the jar they were using to store it. Warm, witty and moving, An Armful of Babies is a vivid portrait of rural England in the post-war years, and a testament to an NHS in its own infancy and to what hasn't changed: the bond between parents and their children, and the importance of protecting that.

    Bernhardt's memoirs are composed with a novelist's (or actress's) sense of artistry and suspense that leaves no doubt of the charisma for which she was famed in her "double life, " both on- and offstage. Yet at the same time as this book very consciously contributes to the crafting of her image, it also illuminates a whole era: not only the world of theater, but also the worlds of women, politics, society, Europe and America, and, indeed, of history making itself.

    Don’t miss it.”—Thomas  Fleming) and Civil War Wives (“Utterly fresh . . . Sensitive, poignant, thoroughly fascinating.”—Jay Winik), here is the remarkable life of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, renowned as the most beautiful woman of nineteenth-century Baltimore, whose marriage in 1803 to Jérôme Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, became inextricably bound to the diplomatic and political histories of the United States, France, and England.In Wondrous Beauty, Carol Berkin tells the story of this audacious, outsized life. We see how the news of the union infuriated Napoleon and resulted in his banning the then ­pregnant Betsy Bonaparte from disembarking in any European port, offering his brother the threat of remaining married to that “American girl” and forfeiting all wealth and power—or renouncing her, marrying a woman of Napoleon’s choice, and reaping the benefits.Jérôme ended the marriage posthaste and was made king of Westphalia; Betsy fled to England, gave birth to her son and only child, Jérôme’s namesake, and was embraced by the English press, who boasted that their nation had opened its arms to the cruelly abandoned young wife. Berkin writes that this naïve, headstrong American girl returned to Baltimore a wiser, independent woman, refusing to seek social redemption or a return to obscurity through a quiet marriage to a member of Baltimore’s merchant class. Instead she was courted by many, indifferent to all, and initiated a dangerous game of politics—a battle for a pension from Napoleon—which she won: her pension from the French government arrived each month until Napoleon’s exile. Using Betsy Bonaparte’s extensive letters, the author makes clear that the “belle of Baltimore” disdained America’s obsession with moneymaking, its growing ethos of democracy, and its rigid gender roles that confined women to the parlor and the nursery; that she sought instead a European society where women created salons devoted to intellectual life—where she was embraced by many who took into their confidence, such as Madame de Staël, Madame Récamier, the aging Marquise de Villette (goddaughter of Voltaire), among others—and  where aristocracy, based on birth and breeding rather than commerce, dominated society.                                                 Wondrous Beauty is a riveting portrait of a woman torn between two worlds, unable to find peace in either—one a provincial, convention-bound new America; the other a sophisticated, extravagant Old World Europe that embraced freedoms, a Europe ultimately swallowed up by decadence and idleness. A stunning revelation of an extraordinary age.

     When the remnants of Napoleon's army returned over the Berezina River in November, only 27,000 effective soldiers remained. Adrien Bourgogne’s Memoirs is one of the most vivid and moving accounts of this dramatic turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. Bourgogne had been in the Napoleonic Army since the campaign of 1806 in Poland. He had taken part in the Battle of Essling, and had fought in Germany, Austria, Spain and Portugal. But none of this could prepare him for the campaign of 1812. The memoir begins with the long travel from Portugal to Moscow where the French were able to defeat the Russian armies in small battles and take the city. But this victory soon became a nightmare as supplies ran short and winter descended onto the Grande Armée. Without being able strike a decisive blow against the Russians, Napoleon was forced to retreat across the barren, snow-covered lands of western Russia. Bourgogne’s account of this agonising journey back towards France truly captures the horrific experience of the troops. As their rearguard was constantly harassed by Cossacks, the French stumbled across the landscape. Some died from hunger, others from merely sleeping on the ground and freezing to death. Bourgogne’s Memoir is an extremely personal account of this time, as he details how he and his comrades did absolutely anything to survive. These proud troops of France who had defeated every army they faced were reduced to killing their horses, stealing, pillaging and begging. But throughout they never lost faith in their leader, Napoleon. The Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne are essential reading for anyone interested in the Napoleonic Wars and Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia. These memoirs were written during his months of captivity. After his life in the army he worked as a draper before re-enlisting in the army in 1830 and receiving the Legion of Honor in 1831. In 1853, Adrien Bourgogne retired and completed his memoirs entitled Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne, appearing in the New Retrospective Review. He died in 1867. This edition was compiled and translated by Paul Cottin in 1899. Cottin died in 1932.

    When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the "ungettable" Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn't wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner's, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick's Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.

    When Hellman responded affirmatively, Mahoney imagined an idyll on Martha's Vineyard of mentoring and friendship. But in reality Mahoney's summer unfolded into an exquisite and grueling exercise in humiliation at the hands of the acerbic Hellman and her retinue of celebrated acquaintances. By turns heartbreaking and uproariously funny, A Likely Story portrays the coming-of-age of a brilliant and troubled young woman--a universal tale of illusions shattered and an object lesson in the often misdirected search for heroes.

    24 photos.

    After risking her life spying on the Nazis, day after day for four long years, Rose lived to fulfill her destiny: locating and returning tens of thousands of works of art stolen by the Nazis during their occupation of France. Yet her remarkable story, like much of her personal life, has remained unknown to the broad public…until now. This book, written by French Senator Corinne Bouchoux, was originally published in France in 2006. Ms. Bouchoux’s interest goes far beyond the wartime service of Rose Valland by delving into her personal life and post-war work to provide important insights about this fascinating and determined woman. Her research also proved helpful in confirming my understanding of the intense relationship between Rose Valland and the man who shared her wartime destiny, Monuments officer Lt. James Rorimer. The absence of books about Rose Valland in the English language has, until now, left us wondering how this ordinary woman mustered such courage to do extraordinary things even when, after the war, many in her own country simply wanted the story of Nazi looting to fade away and with it, Rose Valland’s contribution to history. It has therefore been an honor to translate and publish Corinne Bouchoux’s book and make it available to a much larger audience." - adapted from the book's forward written by Robert M. Edsel, author of The Monuments Men

    HER ONLY CRIME WAS TO BE AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN When Mata Hari arrived in Paris she was penniless. Within months she was the most celebrated woman in the city. As a dancer, she shocked and delighted audiences; as a courtesan, she bewitched the era’s richest and most powerful men. But as paranoia consumed a country at war, Mata Hari’s lifestyle brought her under suspicion. In 1917, she was arrested in her hotel room on the Champs Elysees, and accused of espionage. Told in Mata Hari’s voice through her final letter, The Spy is the unforgettable story of a woman who dared to defy convention and who paid the ultimate price.

    In it the artist discusses his own paintings, his life, his sorrow and hopes; the paintings and sculptures of Rubens, Michelangelo, Constable, Bonington and others: old and new literature and the music of Mozart, Rossini and Chopin, the events of his time.This revival of a famous Phaidon series brings together in an elegant format some of the best-known writings of renowned artists, critics and interpreters of our cultural tradition. Each book, an acknowledged classic, provides insights not only into the worlds of the arts and cultural history, but also into the creative and intellectual preoccupations of its author and his time. These Phaidon editions have an introduction and notes by a distinguished editor and a wide range of illustrations specially chosen to complement the text.