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This reference book, containing the biographies of more than 1,100 notable British women from Boudicca to Barbara Castle, is an absorbing record of female achievement spanning some 2,000 years of British life. Most of the lives included are those of women whose work took them in some way before the public and who therefore played a direct and important role in broadening the horizons of women. Also included are women who influenced events in a more indirect way: the wives of kings and politicians, mistresses, ladies in waiting and society hostesses. Originally published as The Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women, this newly re-worked edition includes key figures who have died in the last 20 years, such as The Queen Mother, Baroness Ryder of Warsaw, Elizabeth Jennings and Christina Foyle.
From the author of "Sisters of the Sea: Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Pirates of the Caribbean" comes a new tale of trouble in paradise during the Great Age of Piracy, "Sometimes Towards Eden." Set against the idyllic backdrop of plantation-era Jamaica and the Bahamas, "Eden" transports us to a time of Caribbean pioneers and civil revolt through the eyes of powerful women. Set ten years after "Sisters," "Eden" continues the story of Anne Bonny, former infamous pirate of the Caribbean, into her new life of peace and anonymity. Her newfound tranquility now disrupted by the raids and battles of the Maroon Wars, Anne must choose between losing everything and returning to the sword. Opposing her, the Ashanti warrior-preistess Nanny, determined to eliminate the English presence in Jamaica and return her people to an authentic way of life. Though struggling for peace amid tropical splendor, blood spills as their families bind both womens' fate to a path of war and redemption deep in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica's past. Riley Hall Publishing, 280 pages. $16.95.
In 1713, soon after publication of the Spectator had come to an end, its place on breakfast tables of Queen Anne's London was taken by the Guardian. Richard Steele, continuing in the new paper the blend of learning, wit, and moral instruction that had proved so attractive in the Tatler and Spectator, was the editor and principal writer; in the 175 numbers of the Guardian he included 53 essays by Joseph Addison, as well as contributions by Alexander Pope, George Berkeley, and several others, some of whom doubtless transmitted their papers through the famous lion's head letterbox that Addison had erected in Button's coffeehouse. "These papers," as John C. Stephens writes in the introduction to his edition of the Guardian, "helped to form and to shape the morals and manners of countless generations in Britain and abroad." This first modern edition of the Guardian was prepared from the original printing of the papers, is fully annotated and indexed, and includes a comprehensive introduction discussing especially the authorship of the individual essays.