The contradictions in her personality are so striking that, while she has often been overshadowed by her more illustrious brother, King Edward VII, and her brilliant sister, the German Empress Frederick, she remains to this day an enigma, the depths of whose character are virtually impossible to penetrate. By the time of her premature death at the age of only thirty-five, Alice had lived through two wars, had lost two of her children, and had exhausted herself in her devotion to duty to the extent that she suffered from disillusionment almost to the point of despair. Nonetheless, in the final tragic weeks of her life, she met unimaginable grief with courage and serenity, and her last words demonstrated her ultimate redemption and the beautiful restoration of all she had loved and lost.

    "Marion Meade has told the story of Eleanor, wild, devious, from a thoroughly historical but different point of view: a woman's point of view."—Allene Talmey, Vogue.

    After gaining admission to Oxford, and moving to the United States to become a journalist, through several love affairs, then marriage and family, Mead read and reread Middlemarch. The novel, which Virginia Woolf famously described as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," offered Mead something that modern life and literature did not.In this wise and revealing work of biography, reporting, and memoir, Rebecca Mead leads us into the life that the book made for her, as well as the many lives the novel has led since it was written. Employing a structure that deftly mirrors that of the novel, My Life in Middlemarch takes the themes of Eliot's masterpiece--the complexity of love, the meaning of marriage, the foundations of morality, and the drama of aspiration and failure--and brings them into our world. Offering both a fascinating reading of Eliot's biography and an exploration of the way aspects of Mead's life uncannily echo that of Eliot herself.

    Katherine spent her life unacknowledged as the king's daughter, yet she was given prime appointments at court as maid of honour to both Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard. She married Francis Knollys when she was 16 and went on to become mother to many successful men and women at court including Lettice Knollys who created a scandal when she married Sir Robert Dudley, the queen's favourite. This fascinating book studies Katherine's life and times, including her intriguing relationship with Elizabeth I.

    Now brought completely up to date, this epic tale charts the rise of four scruffy Liverpool lads from their wild, often comical early days to the astonishing heights of Beatlemania, from the chaos of Apple and the collapse of hippy idealism to the band's acrimonious split. It also describes their struggle to escape the smothering Beatles’ legacy and the tragic deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison. Witty, insightful, and moving, Shout! is essential reading not just for Beatles fans but for anyone with an interest in pop music.

    

    The Bee Gees is the epic family saga of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, and it's riddled with astonishing highs—especially as they became the definitive band of the disco era, fueled by Saturday Night Fever and crashing lows, including the tragic drug-fueled downfall of youngest brother, Andy. In recent years, a whole new generation of fans has rediscovered the undeniable grooves and harmonies that made the Bee Gees and songs like Stayin' Alive, How Deep is Your Love, To Love Somebody, and I Started a Joke timeless.

    Now for the first time, this writing is captured in book format in the Journey Mama Writings Series. In Trees Tall as Mountains, Rachel writes about her life of volunteering in an intentional community in the woods of Northern California with her Superstar Husband and three young children, cultivating joy and her faith in God despite a continuing fight with anxiety and very simple means. She is candid and hopeful, intimate and humorous. Because Rachel’s explorations of faith are not trite or churchy, her writing is beloved by believer and non-believer alike. Her bright, honest words make strangers into friends, and Rachel’s attempts to truly understand the love of God radiate hope to others who are searching for him in the sometimes dark, sometimes beautiful world.

    Banks (1870–1938) was an ambitious young American journalist (born in New Jersey, raised in Wisconsin) who worked as a typist and reporter in Baltimore, then took the unlikely post of secretary to the American Ambassador in Peru, before coming to London to seek her fortune. She achieved her goal admirably in 1894 with a form of 'stunt journalism' that had first been practised by James Greenwood, who dressed in rags and presented himself as a 'casual' pauper to the parish authorities, writing up his experience in his sensational article 'A Night in a Workhouse'. Banks, very much a late nineteenth-century 'New Woman', likewise decided to go 'undercover' amongst the poor — first as a servant, then in several other positions, masquerading as a crossing sweeper, laundress and, at the opposite end of the social spectrum, pretending to be an heiress, to see how easy it might be to buy one's way into the aristocratic upper echelons of London 'Society'. Banks's ploy was successful and the resulting articles became the talk of the capital — and guaranteed her a future career in journalism. Her own autobiography records the words of the Pall Mall Gazette ... 'Her strange, wild and curious adventures are the common theme of conversation in thousands of English homes ...' and, although Banks's subterfuge may not seem 'wild' to modern readers, it remains striking. It was the impersonation of a servant which caused the greatest furore, not least the fear that the upstart young American was promoting a very un-British egalitarian agenda, one sympathetic to the complaints of servants against mistresses, undermining the normal healthy relations between the classes. In fact, the book provides a rather too convenient comparison of two households — the first where the employer exploits and over-works her staff, the second where the cook and maids have the whip-hand over an overly timid and caring mistress. Banks herself, however, had no great political agenda. She confesses frankly in her autobiography that 'I did it for "copy" ... to earn my living'.Such was the interest in Banks's work, that the press sought out the employers who were fooled by the artful reporter. 'Mrs. Allison' (not her real name) was interviewed by the populist Pick Me Up magazine and declared herself 'completely hoodwinked'. She claimed, however, that she only employed Miss Banks because of the pathetic story she told at interview about her penury, and that — contrary to the impression in the book — the cleanliness of her household suffered a good deal due to the reporter's ignorance. Mrs. Allison recounts how she knew there was trouble when her other maid informed her, 'Ma'am, the new housemaid's sweeping the stairs with a bonnet whisk!' In short, according to Mrs. Allison, her American employee 'did not hesitate to declare herself as competent and reliable, although she entered every house under false pretences without being able to sew on a button, darn a stocking, or scrub a floor'.Banks's success was so great because her deception played on the existing fears of the middle- and upper-classes about servants, i.e. that, when members of the family were not present, staff were incompetent and/or deceptive — traitors beneath one's own roof — even if this only amounted to taking unwarranted 'perquisites' from household groceries, or seeing male 'followers'. Whether Miss Banks provides us with a completely truthful account or 'journalistic gingerbread' (to quote the rather unsympathetic Pick Me Up) I must leave it to the reader to judge — regardless, the book remains a fascinating read.

    Oliver Cromwell rose from humble beginnings to spearhead the rebellion against King Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649, and led his soldiers into the last battle against the Royalists and King Charles II at Worcester, ending the civil war in 1651. Fraser shows how England's prestige and prosperity grew under Cromwell, reversing the decline it had suffered since Queen Elizabeth I's death.

    'The Other Tudors' examines the extraordinary untold tales of the women who Henry loved but never married, the mistresses who became queens and of his many children, both acknowledged and unacknowledged.

    Julia Gelardi's Born to Rule is the powerful epic story of five royal granddaughters of Queen Victoria, who reigned over the end of their empires, the destruction of their families, and the tumult of the twentieth centuryHere are the stories of Alexandra, whose faith in Rasputin and tragic end have become the stuff of legend; Marie, the flamboyant and eccentric queen who battled her way through a life of intrigues and was also the mother of two Balkan queens and of the scandalous Carol II of Romania; Victoria Eugenie, Spain's very English queen who, like Alexandra, introduced hemophilia into her husband's family---with devastating consequences for her marriage; Maud, King Edward VII's daughter, who was independent Norway's reluctant queen; and Sophie, Kaiser Wilhelm II's much maligned sister, daughter of an emperor and herself the mother of no less than three kings and a queen, who ended her days in bitter exile.Using never before published letters, memoirs, diplomatic documents, secondary sources, and interviews with descendents of the subjects, Julia Gelardi's Born to Rule is an astonishing and memorable work of popular history.

    Though she kept her private life a mystery, for some years Agatha had secretly written her autobiography, and when it was published after her death, millions of her fans agreed - this was her best story!From early childhood at the end of the 19th century, through two marriages and two World Wars, and her experiences both as a writer and on archaeological expeditions with her second husband, Max Mallowan, this book reveals the true genius of her legendary success with real passion and openness.

    He tells of the large science-steeped family who fostered his early fascination with chemistry. There follow his years at boarding school where, though unhappy, he developed the intellectual curiosity that would shape his later life. And we hear of his return to London, an emotionally bereft ten-year-old who found solace in his passion for learning. Uncle Tungsten radiates all the delight and wonder of a boy’s adventures, and is an unforgettable portrait of an extraordinary young mind.

    Some sacrificed everything for love, while others met a cruel fate at the edge of an axman's blade. From the truth behind the supposed madness of King George to Queen Victoria's surprisingly daring taste in sculpture, Behind the Palace Doors ventures beyond the rumors to tell the unvarnished history of Britain's monarchs, highlighting the unique mix of tragedy, comedy, romance, heroism, and incompetence that has made the British throne a seat of such unparalleled fascination.Featuring: - stories covering every monarch, from randy Henry VIII to reserved Elizabeth II - historical myths debunked and surprising "Did you know . . . ?" anecdotes - four family trees spanning every royal house, from the Tudors to the Windsors