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1945. On the death of his father, Sydney, Lord Otterton finds himself heir to a crumbling country mansion, Cranfield. Despite the fact that his sinister mother has appropriated most of the family funds, the new Lord Otterton manages to persuade his wife and three children to move into the decaying house and set about restoring it to its former glory. To aid him in this task, he recruits Annie Jerrold, a faithful family servant, to be the new housekeeper. She is soon joined by a cast of weird and wonderful characters - a drunken butler, a malevolent French governess and a pair of bizarre lodgers with a rather dubious past. Added to this is an elderly Polish historian, a romantic researching the Whig aristocracy who finds himself involved in a much more intriguing plot on the discovery of some hidden family letters.
A heartwarming and “thoroughly enjoyable” novel of friendship, family, and second chances (The Times, London). Sylvia Appleby is lonely and dissatisfied with her life. She left her husband Frederick, a clergyman and a drunk, some years ago now, and hasn’t seen him since. Her two children have grown up and moved out, leaving her to deal with her awful mother who keeps threatening to descend upon her from Manchester at any moment. Her only consolation is her loyal dog, Prophecy, but even he cannot fill the huge void in her life. So when she sees Mr. Hardcastle’s advertisement for a cook and housekeeper at his beautiful home in Sussex, she jumps at the opportunity for a fresh start and a renewed sense of purpose. However, it’s not long before Sylvia realizes that she’s not the only one with a complicated past, as she finds herself entangled in her employer’s problems—including his turbulent relationship with his money-grubbing daughter and his equally worrying relationship with alcohol. Is Sylvia simply doomed to repeat the past, or is it still possible for her to find her happily ever after?
Madame du Deffand (1696-1780) was a minor French aristocrat who, bored by her marriage, threw herself into scandalous relationships with leading noblemen, including the French Regent. She later re-invented herself as a highly successful salonniere, her salon being frequented by leading thinkers of the day. She also maintained very witty, perceptive correspondences with Voltaire (whose letters back are full expositions of his philosophy) and later with Horace Walpole with whom she fell deeply in love, much to his shock.
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Here, in the first English edition of Benedetta Craveri's recent scholarly study, Civilta della conversazione, he describes the world of women and French salons in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Brilliant, visionary, beautiful Astolphe-man of letters and man of society-finally gets his biography...French Elle Magazine
Although Caraman's name is familiar to Catholics, his energies were spread among may activities, so he is not easily pigeon-holed. Apart from his religious vocation, he was a writer. His research was original and valuable, not just on the early English Catholics, but on Jesuit history (the missions in Paraguay, Ethiopia and Tibet). He forwarded the cause of the canonization of the English martyrs, and, more surprisingly, spent years in Norway trying to establish a Catholic toehold there.
Both Iran and Pakistan represent two distinct patterns of political systems and navigating their relationship is a very difficult task indeed. However, new developments between them in recent years have created salutary interest among scholars of international relations to focus on their long term relationship. This book focuses on various facets of this relationship in a long term perspective by analyzing them under various phases. The period from 1947 to 2010 has been chosen to analyse this relationship, particularly from an Iranian angle, in the context of different ruling systems such as monarchy and theocracy so as to understand the overall state pattern of Iranian foreign policy. The b...