Book picks similar to
"When Beauty Fires the Blood": Love and the Arts in the Age of Dryden by James Anderson Winn
17th-century-history
england
history
history-of-art
Before Enigma (A Kindle Single)
David Boyle - 2015
But there is one other crucial factor, which is much less well known. The same team had done it before. The truth is that many of those most closely involved in cracking the Enigma code – Alistair Denniston, Frank Birch, Dilly Knox – had wrestled with German naval codes for most of the First World War. By the end of the war they had been successfully cracking a new code every day, from their secret Room 40 at the Old Admiralty Building, in a London blacked out for Zeppelin Raids.The techniques they developed then, the ideas that they came to rely on, the people they came to trust, had been developed the hard way, under intense pressure and absolute secrecy during World War I. Before Enigma tells their story and explains how they managed to crack the supposedly indecipherable code. The book outlines the capture of the Magdeburg and the Hobart, discusses the use of cracked codes to bring German fleets to battle at Dogger Bank and Jutland, and focuses on individuals such as Winston Churchill and Admiral Sir Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall and their importance in the development of a British naval code tradition. Praise for David Boyle ‘Exhilarating’ - Daily Mail David Boyle is a British author and journalist who writes mainly about history and new ideas in economics, money, business and culture. He lives in Crystal Palace, London. His books include Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma, Operation Primrose, Rupert Brooke: England’s Last Patriot, Peace on Earth: The Christmas Truce of 1914, Jerusalem: England’s National Anthem and Unheard Unseen: Warfare in the Dardanelles .Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families
Michael Holroyd - 2008
Ellen Terry was a natural actress who filled the theatre with a magical radiance. The Times called her the “uncrowned queen of England,” but behind her public success lay a darker story. The child bride of G.F. Watts, she eloped with a friend of Oscar Wilde’s at the age of twenty-one and gave birth to two illegitimate children. But her greatest partnership was on stage with Henry Irving. At the Lyceum Theatre in London, the two of them created a grand Cathedral of the Arts. Their intimately involved lives exceeded in plot the Shakespearean dramas they performed on stage — and indeed were curiously affected by them. They also influenced the life and work of their remarkable children, Ellen’s children in particular. Edy Craig founded a feminist theatre group, The Pioneer Players. Her brother, Edward Gordon Craig, the revolutionary stage designer who collaborated with Stanislavski is revealed by this book to be the forgotten man of modernism. He had thirteen children by eight women. He is, perhaps, the most extraordinary man Michael Holroyd has ever written about.
The Improbability of Love
Hannah Rothschild - 2015
Soon she finds herself drawn unwillingly into the tumultuous London art world, populated by exiled Russian oligarchs, avaricious Sheikas, desperate auctioneers and unscrupulous dealers, all scheming to get their hands on her painting - a lost eighteenth-century masterpiece called ‘The Improbability of Love’. Delving into the painting’s past, Annie will uncover not just an illustrious list of former owners, but some of the darkest secrets of European history – and in doing so she might just learn to open up to the possibility of falling in love again.
Summerset Abbey
T.J. Brown - 2013
. . . Rowena BuxtonSir Philip Buxton raised three girls into beautiful and capable young women in a bohemian household that defied Edwardian tradition. Eldest sister Rowena was taught to value people, not wealth or status. But everything she believes will be tested when Sir Philip dies, and the girls must live under their uncle’s guardianship at the vast family estate, Summerset Abbey. Standing up for a beloved family member sequestered to the “underclass” in this privileged new world, and drawn into the Cunning Coterie, an exclusive social circle of aristocratic “rebels,” Rowena must decide where her true passions—and loyalties—lie. Victoria BuxtonFrail in body but filled with an audacious spirit, Victoria secretly dreams of attending university to become a botanist like her father. But this most unladylike wish is not her only secret—Victoria has stumbled upon a family scandal that, if revealed, has the potential to change lives forever. . . . Prudence TatePrudence was lovingly brought up alongside Victoria and Rowena, and their bond is as strong as blood. But by birth she is a governess’s daughter, and to the lord of Summerset Abbey, that makes her a commoner who must take her true place in society—as lady’s maid to her beloved “sisters.” But Pru doesn’t belong in the downstairs world of the household staff any more than she belongs upstairs with the Buxton girls. And when a young lord catches her eye, she begins to wonder if she’ll ever truly carve out a place for herself at Summerset Abbey.
Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame
Benita Eisler - 1999
This magnificent record of a towering figure is sure to become the new standard biography of Byron.
William Blake Now: Why He Matters More Than Ever
John Higgs - 2019
Although he died nearly 200 years ago, something about his work continues to haunt the twenty-first century. What is it about Blake that has so endured? In this illuminating essay, John Higgs takes us on a whirlwind tour to prove that far from being the mere New Age counterculture figure that many assume him to be, Blake is now more relevant than ever.
The Grey Album: Music, Shadows, Lies
Kevin Young - 2012
Moving from gospel to soul, funk to freestyle, Young sifts through the shadows, the bootleg, the remix, the grey areas of our history, literature, and music.
Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake
Northrop Frye - 1947
Drawing readers into the imaginative world of William Blake, Frye succeeded in making Blake's voice and vision intelligible to the wider public. Distinguished by its range of reference, elegance of expression, comprehensiveness of coverage, coherence of argument, and sympathy to its subject, Fearful Symmetry was immediately recognized as a landmark of Blake criticism. Fifty years later, it is still recognized as having ensured the acceptance of Blake as a canonical poet by permanently dispelling the widespread notion that he was the mad creator of an incomprehensible private symbolism.For this new edition, the text has been revised and corrected in accordance with the principles of the Collected Works of Northrop Frye series. Frye's original annotation has been supplemented with references to currently standard editions of Blake and others, and many new notes have been provided, identifying quotations, allusions, and cultural references. An introduction by Ian Singer provides biographical and critical context for the book, an overview of its contents, and an account of its reception.
Assignment Bletchley: A WWII Novel of Navy Intelligence, Spies and Intrigue (Commander Romella, USN, WWII Assignments series Book 1)
Peter J. Azzole - 1999
Navy is a specialist in the field of communications intelligence. Little did Tony know that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would have such a direct impact on his career and life. He is urgently ordered from his comfortable duty in Washington, DC to an assignment at Bletchley Park, the British communications intelligence center. This fast-paced, riveting story thrusts Tony into personal, technical and diplomatic situations that test his skills and ingenuity. His love life intermingles with his involvement in a high-level world of intelligence, spies and intrigue. Tony loves every minute of it. Published author, Peter J. Azzole, is a retired U.S. Navy officer with a career in communications intelligence. He crafts this story from history and professional experience.
Avedon: Something Personal
Norma Stevens - 2017
L. Aronson.Richard Avedon was arguably the world's most famous photographer--as artistically influential as he was commercially successful. Over six richly productive decades, he created landmark advertising campaigns, iconic fashion photographs (as the star photographer for Harper's Bazaar and then Vogue), groundbreaking books, and unforgettable portraits of everyone who was anyone. He also went on the road to find and photograph remarkable uncelebrated faces, with an eye toward constructing a grand composite picture of America.Avedon dazzled even his most dazzling subjects. He possessed a mystique so unique it was itself a kind of genius--everyone fell under his spell. But the Richard Avedon the world saw was perhaps his greatest creation: he relentlessly curated his reputation and controlled his image, managing to remain, for all his exposure, among the most private of celebrities.No one knew him better than did Norma Stevens, who for thirty years was his business partner and closest confidant. In Avedon: Something Personal--equal parts memoir, biography, and oral history, including an intimate portrait of the legendary Avedon studio--Stevens and co-author Steven M. L. Aronson masterfully trace Avedon's life from his birth to his death, in 2004, at the age of eighty-one, while at work in Texas for The New Yorker (whose first-ever staff photographer he had become in 1992).The book contains startlingly candid reminiscences by Mike Nichols, Calvin Klein, Claude Picasso, Renata Adler, Brooke Shields, David Remnick, Naomi Campbell, Twyla Tharp, Jerry Hall, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bruce Weber, Cindy Crawford, Donatella Versace, Jann Wenner, and Isabella Rossellini, among dozens of others.Avedon: Something Personal is the confiding, compelling full story of a man who for half a century was an enormous influence on both high and popular culture, on both fashion and art--to this day he remains the only artist to have had not one but two retrospectives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during his lifetime. Not unlike Richard Avedon's own defining portraits, the book delivers the person beneath the surface, with all his contradictions and complexities, and in all his touching humanity.
The Girl You Left Behind
Jojo Moyes - 2012
Sophie Lefèvre must keep her family safe while her adored husband, Édouard, fights at the front. When their town falls to the Germans, Sophie is forced to serve them every evening at her hotel. From the moment the new Kommandant sets eyes on Sophie’s portrait—painted by her artist husband—a dangerous obsession is born. Almost a century later in London, Sophie’s portrait hangs in the home of Liv Halston, a wedding gift from her young husband before his sudden death. After a chance encounter reveals the portrait’s true worth, a battle begins over its troubled history and Liv’s world is turned upside all over again.
Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction
Michael Ferber - 2010
This is the only introduction to Romanticism that incorporates not only the English but the Continental movements, and notonly literature but music, art, religion, and philosophy. Balancing lively details with intriguing topics, it sheds light on such subjects as the Sensibility movement, which preceded Romanticism; the rising prestige of the poet as inspired prophet; the suffering and neglect of the poet; therather different figure of the poetess; Romanticism as a religious trend; Romantic philosophy and science; and Romantic responses to the French Revolution, the Orient, gypsies, and the condition of women. Ferber offers a definition and several general propositions about this very diverse movement, as well as a discussion of the word Romantic and where it came from. Finally, some two hundred authors or artists are cited or quoted, many at length, including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Emerson, Hugo, Goethe, Pushkin, Beethoven, Berlioz, Chopin, and Delacroix.
The Roots of Romanticism
Isaiah Berlin - 1965
A published version has been keenly awaited ever since the lectures were given, and Berlin had always hoped to complete a book based on them. But despite extensive further work this hope was not fulfilled, and the present volume is an edited transcript of his spoken words.For Berlin, the Romantics set in motion a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity's view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notions of objective truth and validity in ethics with incalculable, all-pervasive results. As he said of the Romantics elsewhere: The world has never been the same since, and our politics and morals have been deeply transformed by them. Certainly this has been the most radical, and indeed dramatic, not to say terrifying, change in men's outlook in modern times.In these brilliant lectures Berlin surveys the myriad attempts to define Romanticism, distills its essence, traces its developments from its first stirrings to its apotheosis, and shows how its lasting legacy permeates our own outlook. Combining the freshness and immediacy of the spoken word with Berlin's inimitable eloquence and wit, the lectures range over a cast of the greatest thinkers and artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Kant, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Schlegel, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, and Beethoven. Berlin argues that the ideas and attitudes held by these and other figures helped to shape twentieth-century nationalism, existentialism, democracy, totalitarianism, and our ideas about heroic individuals, individual self-fulfillment, and the exalted place of art. This is the record of an intellectual bravura performance--of one of the century's most influential philosophers dissecting and assessing a movement that changed the course of history.
The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams - 1951
For forty years he was a busy doctor in the town of Rutherford, New Jersey, and yet he was able to write more than thirty books. One of the finest chapters in the Autobiography tells how each of his two roles stimulated and supported the other.
The New World, 1956 (A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Book 2)
Winston S. Churchill - 2013
In the “wilderness” years after Winston S. Churchill unflinchingly guided his country through World War II, he turned his masterful hand to an exhaustive history of the country he loved above all else. And the world discovered that this brilliant military strategist was an equally brilliant storyteller. In 1953, the great man was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.” This second of four volumes exploring the history of this great nation explores the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the power struggles of the Tudor and Stuart families, the growth of the monarchy, the Protestant Reformation, England’s Civil War, and the discovery of the Americas. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples remains one of the most compelling and vivid works of history ever written. “This history will endure; not only because Sir Winston has written it, but also because of its own inherent virtues―its narrative power, its fine judgment of war and politics, of soldiers and statesmen, and even more because it reflects a tradition of what Englishmen in the hey-day of their empire thought and felt about their country’s past.” —The Daily Telegraph