Although both professed similar Enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality, and justice and set similar political agendas, there were also fundamental differences. The French sought a complete break with a thousand years of history; the Americans were content to preserve many aspects of their English heritage. Why did the two revolutions follow such different trajectories? And what lessons do they offer us about democracy today? In lucid narrative style, Dunn captures the personalities and lives of the great figures of both revolutions, and shows how their stories added up to make two very different events.

    This refreshing new guide offers a youthful, budget slant on travel in 32 European countries with additional information for Morocco, Russia and Turkey. With extensive night-life options, and thoroughly researched sections on shopping, markets, sport and outdoor activities, this is the perfect companion for anyone travelling on a budget, from interrailing gap year students to professionals looking to spend less on their career break. Clue-up on the basics with practical information on hostels, train and bus timetables and border crossings. You'll find clear and accessible information on the key destinations in each country and the low-down on the best things to see, do and experience in each city, town or region. The guide comes complete with extensive language sections and "Treat Yourself" boxes that highlight great establishments worth splashing out on. With over 200 easy-to-use maps and exhaustive eating, drinking and accommodation lists, this guide is the budget-conscious traveller's must have item for European trips.

    Its trade was prosperous, its hospitality famous and the host was jolly and generous. To his servants he was cruel and menacing, and to Ellie Roon, the most menial servant at the Fleece, he was a figure of terror. Ellie was used to being bullied, but when her illegitimate daughter was born - in a rat-ridden attic of the Fleece - she decided that Hester must have a different kind of life. And so, Hester Roon began her eventful progress in the harsh world of 18th century England. After fleeing from the inn, and the attentions of the owner, she became involved in the London underworld. From there she found herself in a world far beyond her imaginings..

    Out of it came The Ancient Mariner and ‘Kubla Khan’, as well as Coleridge’s unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood, Wordsworth’s revolutionary verses in Lyrical Ballads and the greatness of ‘Tintern Abbey’, his paean to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding. Bestselling and award-winning writer Adam Nicolson tells the story, almost day by day, of the year in the late 1790s that Coleridge, Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and an ever-shifting cast of friends, dependants and acolytes spent together in the Quantock Hills in Somerset.To a degree never shown before, The Making of Poetry explores the idea that these poems came from this place, and that only by experiencing the physical circumstances of the year, in all weathers and all seasons, at night and at dawn, in sunlit reverie and moonlit walks, can the genesis of the poetry start to be understood.  What emerges is a portrait of these great figures as young people, troubled, ambitious, dreaming of a vision of wholeness, knowing they had greatness in them but still in urgent search of the paths towards it. The poetry they made was not from settled conclusions but from the adventure on which they were all embarked, seeing what they wrote as a way of stripping away all the dead matter, exfoliating consciousness, penetrating its depths. Poetry for them was not an ornament for civilisation but a challenge to it, a means of remaking the world.

    Mercy suddenly lifted her head; the angry answer was on her lips. She checked it, and submitted in silence. "I will be worthy of Julian Gray's confidence in me," she thought, as she stood patiently by the chair. "I will bear anything from the woman whom I have wronged."

    In this new biography of Jane Austen, David Nokes plays master sleuth and storyteller in presenting the great novelist "not in the modest pose which her family determined for her, but rather, as she most frequently presented herself, as rebellious, satirical, and wild."

    To that she directed readers of these essays, declaring that anyone under forty years old would not be interested in them. But she was wrong: since its first publication in 1936, Not Under Forty has appealed to readers of all ages who share Cather's concern for excellence, for what endures, in literature and in life.

    What happened to those children is the fascinating subject of Robert Gottlieb’s 'Great Expectations'.With sympathy and understanding Gottlieb narrates the highly various and surprising stories of each of Dickens’s sons and daughters, from Katey, who became a successful portraitist, to Frank, who died in Moline, Illinois, after serving a grim stretch in the North=West Mounted Police., from Sydney, who joined the Royal Navy, was banned from Gad's Hill for his ruinous behaviour, and died at sea at the age of twenty-five, to Henry ("Sir Henry"), a prominent jurist and paterfamilias who lived to be eighty-four.Each of these lives is fascinating on its own. Together they comprise a unique window on Victorian England as well as a moving and disturbing study of Dickens as a father and a man.

    Going back just a little further, to the beginning of the 19th century, the holiday Jane Austen knew would have looked distinctly odd to modern sensibilities. How odd? Families rarely decorated Christmas trees. Festivities centered on socializing instead of gift-giving. Festivities focused on adults, with children largely consigned to the nursery.  Holiday events, including balls, parties, dinners, and even weddings celebrations, started a week before Advent and extended all the way through to Twelfth Night in January.  Take a step into history with Maria Grace as she explores the traditions, celebrations, games and foods that made up Christmastide in Jane Austen's era. Packed with information and rich with detail from period authors, Maria Grace transports the reader to a longed-for old fashioned Christmas.Non-fiction

    Join the author, Jennifer Forest, as she takes you on an easy to read, non-academic tour of a Regency house.Jane Austen did not place her stories in palaces or on the battlefields, but in that one building so important, then and now: the home. The house, and lack of a home are key to Jane Austen’s novels. Marriage was more than just a romantic alliance for Elizabeth Bennet or Elinor Dashwood. It also meant a home of their own, and a valued role as mistress of the house and estate.But to get that home, to secure that marriage, Jane Austen’s women had to walk a tightrope of social expectation, field off competitors and rise above their embarrassing family situation, all while remaining true to themselves. Behind Jane Austen's Door takes you on a tour of a Regency house, room by room, to explore these delicate challenges and the beautiful lives of Jane Austen's women.

    Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

    Here's the "ultimate," painless way for intermediate and advanced learners to brush up on the rules. Each grammatical concept is explained and then illustrated with lively sentence examples; extensive exercises offer practice at applying this knowledge in everyday conversation. Also included are "culture notes," authentic documents, vocabulary boxes, and verb charts, as well as a full answer key and index.

    But the truth is different: literature and art are pathways of feeling, and our encounter with them is social, inscribing us in a larger community.... Through art we discover that we are not alone.”So writes the esteemed Brown University professor Arnold Weinstein in this brilliant, radical exploration of Western literature. In the tradition of Harold Bloom and Jacques Barzun, Weinstein guides us through great works of art, to reveal how literature constitutes nothing less than a feast for the heart. Our encounter with literature and art can be a unique form of human connection, an entry into the storehouse of feeling.Writing about works by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Munch, Proust, O’Neill, Burroughs, DeLillo, Tony Kushner, Toni Morrison, and others, Weinstein explores how writers and artists give us a vision of what human life is really all about. Reading is an affair of the heart as well as of the mind, deepening our sense of the fundamental forces and emotions that govern our lives, including fear, pain, illness, loss, depression, death, and love.Provocative, beautifully written, essential, A Scream Goes Through the House traces the human cry that echoes in literature through the ages, demonstrating how intense feelings are heard and shared. With intellectual insight and emotional acumen, Weinstein reveals how the scream that resounds through the house of literature, history, the body, and the family shows us who we really are and joins us together in a vast and timeless community.From the Hardcover edition.

    A novel rich in psychological insights, this is a love story, but one of unusual proportions in a Trollope novel.

    This will bring me luck, he said to Mr Balicki. And it will bring you luck because you gave it to me.The silver sword is only a paper knife but it gives Jan and his friends hope. Hungry, cold, and afraid, the four children try to stay alive among the ruins of bombed cities in war-torn Europe. Soon they will begin the long and dangerous journey south, from Poland to Switzerland, where they hope to find their parents again.