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The daughters of a ruthlessly ambitious family, Mary and Anne Boleyn are sent to the court of Henry VIII to attract the attention of the king. He first takes Mary as his mistress, in which role she bears him an illegitimate son, and then Anne as his wife.
The classic, magnificent bestselling novel about Richard III, now in a special thirtieth anniversary edition with a new preface by the author In this triumphant combination of scholarship and storytelling, Sharon Kay Penman redeems Richard III—vilified as the bitter, twisted, scheming hunchback who murdered his nephews, the princes in the Tower—from his maligned place in history. Born into the treacherous courts of fifteenth-century England, in the midst of what history has called The War of the Roses, Richard was raised in the shadow of his charismatic brother, King Edward IV. Loyal to his friends and passionately in love with the one woman who was denied him, Richard emerges as a gifted man far more sinned against than sinning. With revisions throughout and a new author's preface discussing the astonishing discovery of Richard's remains five centuries after his death, Sharon Kay Penman's brilliant classic is more powerful and glorious than ever.
Dorothy Richardson is existing just above the poverty line, doing secretarial work at a dentist's office and living in a seedy boarding house in Bloomsbury, when she is invited to spend the weekend with a childhood friend, Jane. Jane has recently married a writer who is on the brink of fame. His name is H.G. Wells, or Bertie, as they call him. Bertie appears unremarkable at first. But then Dorothy notices his grey-blue eyes taking her in, openly signalling approval. He tells her he and Jane have an agreement which allows them the freedom to take lovers, although Dorothy can tell her friend would not be happy with that arrangement. Not wanting to betray Jane, yet unable to draw back Dorothy free-falls into an affair with Bertie. Then a new boarder arrives at the house- beautiful Veronica Leslie-Jones-and Dorothy finds herself caught between Veronica and Bertie. Amidst the personal dramas and wreckage of a militant suffragette march, Dorothy finds her voice as a writer.
Irving Stone's powerful and passionate biographical novel of Michelangelo. His time: the turbulent Renaissance, the years of poisoning princes, warring popes, the all-powerful Medici family, the fanatic monk Savonarola. His loves: the frail and lovely daughter of Lorenzo de Medici; the ardent mistress of Marco Aldovrandi; and his last love - his greatest love - the beautiful, unhappy Vittoria Colonna. His genius: a God-driven fury from which he wrested the greatest art the world has ever known. Michelangelo Buonarotti, creator of David, painter of the Sistine ceiling, architect of the dome of St Peter's, lives once more in the tempestuous, powerful pages of Irving Stone's marvellous book.
'First published 54 years ago and yet feels as timely as any book I've read this year' Observer Nine months after the Nazi occupation of Austria, 600 Jewish Children assembled at Vienna station to board the first of the Kindertransports bound for Britain. Among them was 10 year old Lore Segal. For the next seven years, she lived as a refugee in other people's houses, moving from the Orthodox Levines in Liverpool, to the staunchly working class Hoopers in Kent, to the genteel Miss Douglas and her sister in Guildford. Few understood the terrors she had fled, or the crushing responsibility of trying to help her parents gain a visa. Amazingly she succeeds and two years later her parents arrive; their visa allows them to work as domestic servants - a humiliation for which they must be grateful. In Other People's Houses Segal evokes with deep compassion, clarity and calm the experience of a child uprooted from a loving home to become stranded among strangers.
Traces the life of a young Jewish girl who kept a diary during the two years she and her family hid from the Germans in an Amsterdam attic.
An intriguing and absorbing novel about the life of Virginie Gautreau, the subject of John Singer Sargent's most famous portrait Madame X, which scandalized the 1884 Paris Salon—perfect for fans of the bestselling Girl with a Pearl Earring. When John Singer Sargent unveiled Madame X—his famous portrait of twenty-three-year-old American beauty Virginie Gautreau—at the 1884 Paris Salon, its subject's bold pose, bare shoulders, and provocative dress shocked the public and the critics, who found the portrait displaying Virginie's blatant sexuality bizarre, artificial, and unwholesome. The scandal destroyed Sargent's dreams of a career in Paris, forcing him to flee to England. In this remar...
Biofictions sets out to explore this renewed interest in Romantic artist-figures in the context of the current renaissance of "life-writing."
This compelling novel takes the reader into the tumultuous period of the Renaissance and the origins of Leonardo da Vinci, the bastard child of a notary. Of da Vinci, the eminent art historian Kenneth Clark wrote, “no more complex and mysterious character ever existed than this Hamlet of art history.” Clark noted that one had to be “familiar with all of Leonardo’s writings in their chronological order (and) the state of learning in the Renaissance to judge Leonardo’s progress in relation to that of his contemporaries.”This compelling novel takes the reader into the tumultuous period of the Renaissance and the origins of Leonardo da Vinci, the bastard child of a notary. Of da Vinci, the eminent art historian Kenneth Clark wrote, “no more complex and mysterious character ever existed than this Hamlet of art history.” Clark noted that one had to be “familiar with all of Leonardo’s writings in their chronological order (and) the state of learning in the Renaissance to judge Leonardo’s progress in relation to that of his contemporaries.”
In the internationally bestselling vein of The Paris Wife and Z: a novel of Zelda Fitzgerald this biographical novel is set in the early 1900s when polite Chicago society was rocked by terrible scandal when renowned architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, ran off with Mamah Cheney, a client's wife. Abandoning their families and reputations, the lovers fled to Europe and exile. Mamah's actions branded her an unnatural mother and society relished her persecution. For the rest of her life Mamah paid an extraordinary price for moving outside society's rules, in a time that was unforgiving of a woman's quest for fulfilment and personal happiness. Headstrong and honest, her love for Frank was unstoppable. This portrait of her life as his muse and soulmate is a moving, passionate and timeless love story with a shocking conclusion.