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Shortlisted for Harper's Bazaar Book of the Year 2019 A Guardian, Spectator and Mail on Sunday Book of the Year 2018 'A lyrical portrait of a fast-vanishing way of life . . . Thompson is a terrific writer'New Statesman Laura Thompson’s grandmother Violet was one of the great landladies. Born in a London pub, she became the first woman to be given a publican’s licence in her own name and, just as pubs defined her life, she seemed in many ways to embody their essence. Laura spent part of her childhood in Violet’s Home Counties establishment, mesmerised by her gift for cultivating the mix of cosiness and glamour that defined the pub’s atmosphere, making it a unique reflection of the nat...
'Wonderfully readable... Emphasises their sheer extraordinariness and celebrates them' MAIL ON SUNDAY. The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald Mosley; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire. They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege, they became prominent as 'bright young things' in the high society of interwar London. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark – and very public – differences in their outlooks came to symbolise the political polarities of a dangerous decade. The intertwined stories of their lives – recounted in masterly fashion by Laura Thompson – hold up a revelatory mirror to upper-class English life before and after World War II.
Heiresses is a glorious book, endlessly entertaining and about much more than its stated subject. Thompson is a fabulous writer' Caroline O'Donoghue 'Witty, insightful, deliciously gossip-laden and slightly scandalous... Heiresses makes for an entertaining, occasionally sad and never less than gripping read' Anne Sebba 'Excellent... [A] wonderfully entertaining book' Sunday Times 'Exquisite and gossipy... Thompson, a gifted storyteller, obviously delighted in the writing of this book' TLS '[A] deeply empathetic study of heiresses through the ages' The Times 'Life is less sad with money', said Emerald Cunard; Barbara Hutton was the 'Poor Little Rich Girl', but which is true? Laura Thompson ex...
Fans of Murder on the Orient Express won't want to miss out on this insight into the life of arguably the greatest crime writer in the world, as Laura Thompson turns her highly acclaimed biographical skills to Agatha Christie. 'Laura Thompson's outstanding biography . . . is a pretty much perfect capturing of a life' Kate Mosse, Book of the Year 2007 It has been 100 years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. In this biography, Laura Thompson describes the Edwardian world in which she grew up, explores the relationships she had, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the mysteries still surrounding Christie's life...
'Sensational. The most minutely researched and brilliantly told account ever' MAIL ON SUNDAY. Laura Thompson re-examines the truths behind one of post-war Britain's most notorious murders: the bludgeoning to death of nanny Sandra Rivett in a Belgravia basement on 7 November 1974. Lord Lucan, found guilty of the murder, was only granted a death certificate in 2016. His wife Veronica – last surviving participant in this dark episode – died in September 2017. In this revised edition, Laura Thompson sheds new light on the volatile mental state of Veronica Lucan, and on the theories surrounding the murder, to which she adds a new, extraordinary and shocking possibility.
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'Another dark parable of society's vilification of women. Intelligent... A tantalizing investigation' Kate Colquhoun. On the night of 3 October 1922, in the quiet suburb of Ilford, Edith Thompson and her husband Percy were walking home after an evening spent at a London theatre, when a man sprang out of the darkness and stabbed Percy to death. The assailant was Frederick Bywaters, a twenty-year-old merchant seaman who had been Edith's lover. When the police learned of his relationship with Edith, she was arrested as his accomplice, despite protesting her innocence. The remarkably intense love letters Edith wrote to Freddy – some of them couched in ambiguous language – were read out at their trial for murder at the Old Bailey. They would seal her fate: Edith and Freddy were hanged for the murder of Percy Thompson in January 1923. Freddy was demonstrably guilty; but was Edith truly so? In shattering detail and with masterful emotional insight, Laura Thompson charts the course of a liaison with thrice-fatal consequences, and investigates what the trial and execution of Edith Thompson tell us about perceptions of women in early twentieth-century Britain.
A riveting account of the notorious “Ilford murder” by the New York Times bestselling author of The Six. The death penalty is never without its ethical conflicts or moral questions. Never more so than when the person being led to the gallows may very well be innocent of the actual crime, if not innocent according social concepts of femininity. A Tale of Two Murders is an engrossing examination of the Ilford murder, which became a legal cause ce´le`bre in the 1920s, and led to the hanging of Edith Thompson and her lover, Freddy Bywaters. On the night of October 3, 1922, as Edith and her husband, Percy, were walking home from the theatre, a man sprang out of the darkness and stabbed Percy...
'Laura Thompson's outstanding biography . . . is a pretty much perfect capturing of a life' - Kate Mosse It has been 100 years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. In this biography, Laura Thompson describes the Edwardian world in which she grew up, explores the relationships she had, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the mysteries still surrounding Christie's life - including her disappearance in 1926. Agatha Christie is a mystery and writing about her is a detection job in itself. But, with access to all of Christie's letters, papers and writing notebooks, as well as interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie's detective fiction, but the truth behind her private life as well. First published in 2007 as 'Agatha Christie: An English Mystery', this is a fully updated edition with a new introduction by the author
Film noir and theatre collide.PLAY Noir anthology brings all seven seasons of PLAY Noir together in one book. Penned by playwrights from around the world, these 41 one-act plays encompass all facets of the noir genre from - classic noir to neo noir, drama and comedy as well as all the archetypal characters you expect in a collection of this magnitude, including - the hardboiled dick, the femme fatale and the ever elusive heavy. PLAY Noir Anthology also indludes two additional one-acts - Blonde Noir 3: The Idiom and the Oddity, and Duece Cooper: Pier Pressure - not available in past PLAY Noir volumes. Chock full of twists and turns, PLAY Noir Anthology is a must have for any actor or director in search of fresh and challenging material to test their creative limits, and guarantees to delight and entertain audiences and readers alike.