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The Story of English
Born as a Germanic tongue with the arrival in Britain of the Anglo-Saxons in the early medieval period, heavily influenced by Norman French from the 11th century, and finally emerging as modern English from the late Middle Ages, the English language has grown to become the linguistic equivalent of a superpower. Worldwide some 380 million people speak English as a first language and some 600 million as a second language. A staggering one billion people are believed to be learning it. English is the premier international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, and diplomacy, and also on the Internet and is thought by many to be well on the way to becoming the wo...
The Salisbury Manuscript
'Gooden may be the best history-mystery writer going.' Booklist 1873. A treasure-hunter is stabbed to death while searching a burial chamber on the outskirts of the city of Salisbury. At the same time Tom Ansell arrives from London to receive a manuscript from one of the cathedral canons. Tom is an ambitious lawyer, and about to marry Helen Scott - a budding novelist. Felix Slater, a respectable churchman and amateur archaeologist, wants the scandalous manuscript of his late father's memoirs locked away until after his own death. But Slater's death comes much sooner than expected, and Tom falls under suspicion for his murder. The compromising manuscript has disappeared. To exonerate himself,...
An Honourable Murderer
'Highly entertaining' Sunday Times It's the summer of 1604 and the Spanish are in London. Many years after the ill-fated Armada, they are negotiating a peace treaty with the English. Nick Revill's acting company is given a ceremonial role at the celebrations, but not everybody welcomes this outbreak of peace. In the shifting world of the court there are factions. In the Tower of London sits that implacable enemy of the Spanish, Sir Walter Raleigh, and he has friends on the outside who may try to sabotage the negotiations. Nick, meanwhile, is trying to get on with his playing. Invited by Shakespeare's rival, Ben Jonson, to take part in a masque at Somerset House where the Spanish are lodged, ...
The Pale Companion
'Highly entertaining' Sunday Times Midsummer 1601. Nick Revill and his fellow actors in the Chamberlain's Men are journeying across the Wiltshire Downs for a country-house presentation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. It should be a pleasant, well-paid jaunt to celebrate a noble marriage, but when the actors arrive at their destination, Instede House, they enter a tense atmosphere. Lord Elcombe is pushing his older son into a marriage that the son seems set against, while in the nearby woods a wild man called Robin talks in riddles of long-hidden family secrets. In another quarter of the great estate lodges a travelling band of fire-and-brimstone morality players called the Paradi...
Bad Words
Once upon a time, the worst words you could utter were short, simple and tended to be four letters in length. Now things are more complicated. To be insulted as a 'snowflake' or an 'expert' is arguably worse than being called a **** or a **** or even a ****. So what are today's 'bad words' and how are they different from yesterday's taboo expressions? This entertaining guide to the shifting sands of bad language is indispensable in an increasingly divided world in which abuse becomes ever more widespread and vituperative. Philip Gooden shows how and why taboo words and contentious expressions, including those four-letter ones, were first used in English. He discusses the ways such words have changed over the years and explores how a single syllable or two may possess an almost magical power to offend, distress or infuriate. Bad Words investigates the most controversial and provocative words in the English language in a way that is both anecdotal and analytical. Combining intrigue and scandal, the book delves into expressions connected to religion, ethnicity, nationality, politics, swearing and oaths, and includes contemporary issues like political correctness and elitism.
Sleep of Death
'Highly entertaining' Sunday Times In the last decade of Elizabeth I's reign, Nick Revill, an aspiring young actor, comes to London seeking fame and fortune. Once there he gains employment with the Chamberlain's Men. Thrown out of his digs over an unfortunate accident, Nick is offered lodgings at a wealthy Thameside mansion by a black-clad youth whose father has just died and whose mother has remarried his uncle. Pondering on the similarities between the young man's story and William Shakespeare's newest tragedy, Hamlet, Nick is charged with the task of finding out whether foul play was involved in the death of the old man and hasty remarriage of his young, lusty wife. As Nick works his way ...
Idiomantics: The Weird and Wonderful World of Popular Phrases
Idiomantics is a unique exploration of the world of idiomatic phrases. The very etymology of the word 'idiom' reveals what's so endlessly fascinating about the wide range of colourful phrases we use in everyday speech: their peculiarity. They're peculiar both in the sense of being particular or unique to the culture from which they originate, and in the sense of being downright odd. To cite three random examples - from American English, Dutch and Italian - what on Earth are a snow job, a monkey sandwich story, and Mr Punch's secret? Fascinating and illuminating, Idiomantics explains all... The ideal gift for word buffs and in fact, anyone who enjoys a good yarn, this playful book looks at 12 groups of idioms around the world, looking at subjects such as fun and games, gastronomic delights and the daily grind.
The Tainted Relic
July, 1100. Jerusalem lies ransacked. Amidst the chaos, an English knight is entrusted with a valuable religious relic: a fragment of the True Cross, allegedly stained with the blood of Christ. The relic is said to be cursed: anyone who touches it will meet an untimely and gruesome end. Several decades later, the Cross turns up in the possession of a dealer, robbed and murdered en route to Glastonbury. Investigating the death, Bernard Knight's protagonist, Crowner John learns of its dark history. In Oxford in 1269, the discovery of a decapitated monk leads Ian Morson's academic sleuth William Falconer to uncover a link to the relic. In 1323, in Exeter, Michael Jecks' Sir Baldwin has reason to suspect its involvement in at least five violent deaths. Thirty years later, several suspicious deaths occur in Cambridge - and, once again, the tainted relic has a crucial part to play. Finally, it's despatched to London, where Philip Gooden's Nick Revill will determine its ultimate fate.
Death of Kings
'Another clever criminal plunge into history' Guardian Elizabeth I is nearing the end of her reign with no direct heir and plots and rumours of rebellion abound. The Queen's former favourite, the Earl of Essex, appears to be eager to protect the throne, but some believe he intends to seize it. In the world of the theatre, the Chamberlain's Men are approached by a member of Essex's inner circle. He offers them money to put on a special performance of Shakespeare's "Richard II" - the treasonous drama of monarchy deposed and murdered. And player Nick Revill finds himself forced to act as a government spy and keep watch on his own company. But then the murders start. The second historical murder...
Alms for Oblivion
'Another clever criminal plunge into history' Guardian On a foggy morning in 1602, a boyhood friend of Nick Revill arrives in London. When Peter Agate announces that he wants to try his hand at acting, what can Nick do but offer him a part with his own company, the Chamberlain's Men, who are putting on a private production of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida for the lawyers of Middle Temple. Yet within days Peter Agate is dead, stabbed to death at Nick's lodgings - the beginning of a sequence of violent deaths, each somehow implicating Nick himself. To avoid the hangman's noose Nick must discover the real murderer among a cast of suspects, including an aristocratic brother and sister, a tr...
