What was so dangerous about this artistic, tempestuous royal that her life has been documented more by rumor and gossip than hard facts? When Lucinda Hawksley started to investigate, often thwarted by inexplicable secrecy, she discovered a fascinating woman, modern before her time, whose story has been shielded for years from public view.Louise was a sculptor and painter, friend to the Pre-Raphaelites and a keen member of the Aesthetic movement. The most feisty of the Victorian princesses, she kicked against her mother's controlling nature and remained fiercely loyal to her brothers-especially the sickly Leopold and the much-maligned Bertie. She sought out other unconventional women, including Josephine Butler and George Eliot, and campaigned for education and health reform and for the rights of women. She battled with her indomitable mother for permission to practice the "masculine" art of sculpture and go to art college-and in doing so became the first British princess to attend a public school.The rumors of Louise's colorful love life persist even today, with hints of love affairs dating as far back as her teenage years, and notable scandals included entanglements with her sculpting tutor Joseph Edgar Boehm and possibly even her sister Princess Beatrice's handsome husband, Liko. True to rebellious form, she refused all royal suitors and became the first member of the royal family, since the sixteenth century, to marry a commoner. She moved with him to Canada when he was appointed Governor-General.Spirited and lively, Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter is richly packed with arguments, intrigues, scandals, and secrets, and is a vivid portrait of a princess desperate to escape her inheritance.

    From childhood backyard cricket with mates and family, and net sessions with his dad that laid the foundations for his later success, Steve traces the influences and events that started him on his cricket journey.He takes us inside his quest to play cricket at the highest level, from formative club and grade games, to his first overseas experiences, and finally to state cricket and the Australian squad. It's a journey with both ups and downs, where valuable and lasting lessons were learned from the successes and, more importantly, the failures.And Steve compellingly describes the key moments that shaped him into the cricketer and leader he is today, from his definitive hundred at Centurion in South Africa, to the soul-searching and resolve that accompanied the Australian team's lowest point in the 2016 Hobart Test, to the epic 2017 series in India.The Journey is a revealing and fascinating insight into Steve Smith-the cricketer and the man.

    The couples are John Ruskin and Effie Gray; Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh; John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor; George Eliot and G. H. Lewes; Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth.

    Most biographies focus on the years of her reign, during which she proved herself as adept a ruler -- and as shrewd an operator -- as England had ever seen. But while the history of her rule is fascinating, the story of how her remarkable character was forged seems vital to a full understanding of the woman who led England into a new age of prosperity, power, and artistic achievement. David Starkey's Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne explores the terra incognita of Elizabeth's early years, and the result is nothing short of captivating.Starkey finds that Elizabeth's early years ran the gamut from days of snug security as the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and Henry's heir apparent, to the years of uncertainty after her mother's execution whenElizabeth was separated from court and virtually forgotten. She received a first-rate academic education, excelling in languages and rhetoric and exhibiting a strong interest in the Protestant religion her father had established in England. But the education she received from life itself would prove far more valuable for the monarch-to-be. After the death of Henry VIII and Edward VI (Elizabeth's half brother), Elizabeth's status as sister and would-be successor to the Catholic queen Mary put her in a dangerous position.It also put her in prison at Mary's command -- and perilously close to execution -- after plots to place Elizabeth on the throne were revealed. Starkey makes it clear that while others may have actually done the dirty work, Elizabeth was usually in the thick of these efforts. Her imprisonment taught her to cover her tracks, but it did not stop her maneuverings. While fervently professing her Catholic faith, she surrounded herself with Protestant advisers and attendants, and bided her time. She evaded another snare of her sister's when Mary attempted to neutralize Elizabeth by marrying her off to a Catholic Spaniard in exchange for naming Elizabeth her successor. Perhaps Elizabeth had learned early on from the plight of her mother that marriage had its drawbacks. Starkey, however, suggests that Elizabeth, in a moment of true regality, would not accept the crown if it came through bullying and capitulation. Again, Elizabeth bided her time.Her seeming patience -- for Starkey reveals that Elizabeth continued to plot -- paid off when Mary, never robust, entered her final illness. Elizabeth managed to convince the now irrational queen that she was, indeed, a staunch Catholic and vowed to preserve England as a Catholic realm. Upon Mary's death, Elizabeth ascended to the throne with no meaningful opposition, thereby beginning what would be a golden age, one of the most legendary reigns in history. Starkey lets us understand, for the first time, the forces that made her into the formidable woman -- and brilliant ruler -- that she would soon prove to be.

    He was twenty-two. Soon recognized as a cryptographer of genius, he became head of communications at the Special Operations Executive (SOE), where he revolutionized the codemaking techniques of the Allies and trained some of the most famous agents dropped into occupied Europe, including "the White Rabbit" and Violette Szabo. As a top codemaker, Marks had a unique perspective on one of the most fascinating and, until now, little-known aspects of the Second World War. Writing with the narrative flair and vivid characterization of his famous screenplays, Marks gives free rein to his keen sense of the absurd and his wry wit, resulting in a thrilling and poignant memoir that celebrates individual courage and endeavor, without losing sight of the human cost and horror of war.

    After months of struggle, he learned how to resume his life as a farmer, running a sheep and cattle property in northwest New South Wales. then he met and fell in love with Jenny Black, an ABC Rural journalist, proposed to her on air, and the rest is history. Jenny tells Sam's story in his own laconic, wry style. By turns romantic, funny and moving, it affirms the strength of iron-willed determination and the power of love.

    From its dawn in the 1660s to its twilight in the 1960s, Cliveden was an emblem of elite misbehaviour and intrigue. Conceived by the Duke of Buckingham as a retreat for his scandalous affair with Anna-Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, the house later served as the backdrop for the Profumo Affair, which would bring down a government and change the course of British history.In the three hundred years between the Countess and Christine Keeler, the house was occupied by a dynasty of remarkable women: Elizabeth Villiers, an intellectual who brokered the rise and fall of governments; Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, a minor German royal who almost became queen of England; Harriet Duchess of Sutherland, the glittering society hostess turned political campaigner; and Nancy Astor, the consummate controversialist who became the first woman to take a seat in parliament. Under the direction of these women, Cliveden provided a stage for political plots and artistic premieres, hosted grieving monarchs and republican radicals, was idealised as a family home, and maligned as a threat to national security.The Mistresses of Cliveden is by turns a historical epic, a political thriller, a family drama, and an intimate history of the relationships between people and place. Above all, it is a story about sex and power, and the ways in which exceptional women have evaded, exploited, and confronted the expectations of their times.

    Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert's Mme Bovary. She pioneered the theatre of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers' and gas workers' trades unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later she edited many of his key political works, and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, sexual equality was a necessary precondition for a just society.Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference - her favourite motto: 'Go ahead!' With her closest friends - among them, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne and William Morris - she was at the epicentre of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: she loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organising until her untimely end, which - with its letters, legacies, secrets and hidden paternity - reads in part like a novel by Wilkie Collins, and in part like the modern tragedy it was.

    It replaced reverence with skepticism and Strachey's wit, iconoclasm, and narrative skill liberated the biographical enterprise. His portraits of Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and General Gordon changed perceptions of the Victorians for a generation. Lytton Strachey's biographical essays on four "eminent Victorians" dropped an explosive charge on Victorian England when the book was published in 1918. This edition is unique in being fully annotated and in drawing on the full range of Strachey's manuscript materials and literary remains.

    This is it, the 1st since the official & monumental study by Monypenny & Buckle which appeared deecades ago. Blake deals with Disraeli's political style & above all with the legend that he was moved by a consistent philosophy of Tory radicalism which he conceived in his youth & later put into practice. In place of this, he presents a man moved far less by principle than by sheer zest for "the great game", loving power & skillfully maneuvering to get & hold it. Paradoxically, Blake shows how this may have made him far more effective in steering the Tory party into new paths than any man of principle could have been. Disraeli presents a lively portrait of an extraordinary man & of his age. Without ever deviating far from his subject, Blake illuminates the whole arena of Victorian politics. The character he presents is more subtle & fascinating than the conventional image. Altho his origins were less obscure than he liked people to believe, his youth was extraordinarily disreputable for a future Prime Minister & an aura of raffishness hindered him until late in his career. The book follows Disraeli's slow climb to power from the time when the young novelist & dandy failed repeatedly to get into Parliament at all, thru his period as a neglected backbencher until finally achieving the Leadership of the Tory Party in the House of Commons &, late in life, becoming Victoria's confidant & perhaps most favored Prime Minister. Many characters crowd into the book: the brilliant young men of "Young England"; Disraeli's family, friends, wife & mistresses; his colleagues & opponents in parliament, including Peel, whom he destroyed as an effective political leader, & Gladstone, who hated him; Queen Victoria, whose relationship with him verges on the comic to those reading it some generations later; & the great landed families into whose society Disraeli was finally admitted. A whole vanished world comes to life in this book. In its center stands the brilliant, enigmatic figure of one who was perhaps the most atypical inhabitant, but who has come to symbolize, for Americans at least, the Victorian Age.

    Later, this Bermondsey boy would become known as Tommy Steele . In this engaging memoir Tommy recalls his childhood years growing up in Bermondsey. He relives with great fondness Saturdays as a young boy, spent gazing at the colourful posters for the Palladium and days spent wandering up Tower Bridge Road to Joyce's Pie Shop for pie and mash. But he also brings to life with extraordinary vividness what it was like to live through the devastation of the Blitz. Yet it was once he joined the merchant navy and began singing and performing for his fellow seamen that his natural ability as an entertainer marked him out as a favourite. And it was while ashore in America that he became hooked on rock'n'roll and a legend was born . From Tommy's humble beginning to life at sea and finally as a performer, Bermondsey Boy is a colourful, charming and deeply engaging memoir from a much-loved entertainer.

    The younger William Pitt -- known as the 'schoolboy' -- began his days as Prime Minister in 1783 deeply underestimated and completely beleaguered. Yet he annihilated his opponents in the General Election the following year and dominated the governing of Britain for twenty-two years, nearly nineteen of them as Prime Minister. No British politician since then has exercised such supremacy for so long. Pitt presided over dramatic changes in the country's finances and trade, brought about the union with Ireland, but was ultimately consumed by the years of debilitating war with France. Domestic crises included unrest in Ireland, deep division in the royal family, the madness of the King and a full-scale naval mutiny. He enjoyed huge success, yet died at the nadir of his fortunes, struggling to maintain a government beset by a thin majority at home and military disaster abroad; he worked, worried and drank himself to death. Finally his story is told with the drama, wit and authority it deserves.

    Teller asked about the people in the drawings: the streetcar operators, waitresses, soldiers, bums. And Mam and Pad (Irene and Joe) began to unfold the hidden history of their world before their Bundle of Joy came along. Out came the Hobo Shoebox, full of letters Joe wrote while riding the rails during the Great Depression; their daring photos as art students, eloping to escape their feuding families; and the War Trunk. Readers stand beside Teller as Pad teaches him why using a ruler in painting is evil; join Mam as she interprets the designs hidden in Joe's "art pancakes"; and enter the world of a most peculiar, philosophical, funny, and loving family.

    It is a table, listing the qualities of a couple. One column reads ‘Often says what he does not think’, ‘He does not show his feelings’, ‘He is a genius’; the other ‘Never says what she does not think', ‘She shows her feelings’, ‘She is a dunce’. The writing is Mary Anne Disraeli’s: the qualities listed contrast her with her husband, Benjamin Disraeli, one of the foremost politicians of the Victorian age.The daughter of a sailor, on her second marriage and 12 years older than her husband, Mary Anne was highly eccentric, liable to misbehave and (worse still) overdressed for grand society dinners. Her beloved Diz was of Jewish descent, a mid-ranking novelist and frequently mired in debt. He was fiercely protective and completely devoted to his wife. She was devoted to him, too, and they were both devoted to the very idea of being devoted. They wrote passionate letters to one another through their courtship and their marriage, spinning their unusual tale into a romance worthy of the novels they so loved.Reading between the lines of a great cache of their letters and the anecdotes of others in chilly Oxford reading rooms, Daisy Hay shows how the Disraelis rose to the top of the social and political pile. Along the way, we meet women of a similar station and situation whose endings were far unhappier than Mary Anne’s, acting as a counterpoint to her fairy tale ending as the landed Angel of the Prime Minister’s House.In an age where first ladies are under ever-increasing pressure to perform and conform, Mr and Mrs Disraeli offers a portrait of one who refused to do either, in a society which demanded she do both.

    Fast Tract Digestion Heartburn is the first book to define and address the real cause of acid reflux. Acid reflux occurs as a result of digestive malabsorption of five difficult-to-digest carbohydrates. It leads to the overgrowth of gas-producing bacteria in the small intestine and the gas pressure drives acid reflux. Dropping a Mentos into a bottle of Coke is the perfect illustration of this phenomenon. Unfortunately, PPI drugs do not address the real cause, but also cause serious side effects including vitamin and mineral malabsorption, bone fractures, pneumonia, low blood magnesium levels, bacterial overgrowth, C diff infection and pneumonia as explained in the book.Fast Tract Digestion Heartburn offers science-based food choices and recipes (Fast Tract Diet) to limit the five difficult-to-digest carbohydrates, so that you can feel relief within a few days Also, it enables you to self-manage all of the symptoms of acid reflux going forward. The Fast Tract Diet is based on a scientific formula called Fermentation Potential (FP). FP is the key measure regardless of the carbohydrate count. Limiting foods with high FP will help control the overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine and, as a result, acid reflux. The Fast Tract Diet was clinically tested on reflux sufferers in the Boston area. The results were overwhelming and proved the effectiveness of the diet as an alternative to proton pump inhibitor drugs.