Recommendations based on "Mantel Pieces Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books"

Some of their past the Tudors wanted to remember, other parts they preferred to forget: a new history, a new story, the family behind the myths.The Tudors are a national obsession; they are our most notorious royal family. But, as Leanda de Lisle shows in this gripping new history, beyond the well-worn headlines is a family still more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew.The Tudor canon typically starts with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, before speeding on to Henry VIII and the Reformation. But this leaves out the family’'s obscure Welsh origins, the ordinary man known as Owen Tudor who would fall (literally) into a Queen’'s lap, and later her bed. It passes by the courage of Margaret Beaufort, the pregnant thirteen-year-old girl who would help found the Tudor dynasty; and the childhood and painful exile of her son, the future Henry VII. It ignores the fact that the Tudors were shaped by their past -- those parts they wished to remember and those they wished to forget.By creating a full family portrait set against the background of this past, Leanda de Lisle enables us to see the Tudors in their own terms, rather than ours; and presents new perspectives and revelations on key figures and events. We see a family dominated by remarkable women doing everything possible to secure its future; understand why the Princes in the Tower disappeared; look again at the bloodiness of Mary’'s reign; at Elizabeth’'s relationships with her cousins; and re-discover the true significance of previously overlooked figures. We see the supreme importance of achieving peace and stability in a violent and uncertain world, and of protecting and securing the bloodline. Tudor tells a family story like no other, and brings it once more to vivid life.

Since its publication in 1908, Anne of Green Gables has been an enduring bestseller and arguably Canada’s most famous novel. This Norton Critical Edition offers an unrivaled selection of contextual and critical material, edited by two leading Montgomery scholars. “Backgrounds” brings together fourteen relevant excerpts from Montgomery’s journals, letters, and juvenilia along with literary selections from, among others, Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Caroline Oliphant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Louisa May Alcott. The cultural context of Anne of Green Gables is explored through the writings of Carole Gerson, Kate Wood, and Mary Henley Rubio. “Criticism” is divided into “Early Reviews and Responses” and “Modern Critical Views.” Eight reviews from 1908 to 1942 include Canadian, American, and British assessments. Critical essays are provided by, among others, Northrop Frye, Elizabeth Epperly, T. D. MacLulich, Juliet McMaster, Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, and Elizabeth Waterston. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Published in 1994 to worldwide acclaim, the first edition of Jancis Robinson's seminal volume immediately attained legendary status, winning every major wine book award including the Glenfiddich and Julia Child/IACP awards, as well as writer and woman of the year accolades for its editor on both sides of the Atlantic. Combining meticulously-researched fact with refreshing opinion and wit, The Oxford Companion to Wine presents almost 4,000 entries on every wine-related topic imaginable, from regions and grape varieties to the owners, connoisseurs, growers, and tasters in wine through the ages; from viticulture and oenology to the history of wine, from its origins to the present day. More than 180 esteemed contributors (including 58 new to this edition) range from internationally renowned academics to some of the most famous wine writers and wine specialists in the world. Now exhaustively updated, this fourth edition incorporates the very latest international research to present 300 new entries on topics ranging from additives and wine apps to WSET and Zelen. Over 60 per cent of all entries have been revised; and useful lists and statistics are appended, including a unique list of the world's controlled appellations and their permitted grape varieties, as well as vineyard area, wine production and consumption by country. Illustrated with almost 30 updated maps of every important wine region in the world, many useful charts and diagrams, and 16 stunning colour photographs, this Companion is unlike any other wine book, offering an understanding of wine in all of its wider contexts—notably historical, cultural, and scientific—and serving as a truly companionable point of reference into which any wine-lover can dip and browse.

A charming and amusing view of Nin's early life, from age eleven to seventeen; the self-portrait of an innocent girl who is transformed, through her own insights, into an enlightened young woman. "An enchanting portrait of a girl's constant search for herself" (Library Journal). Preface by Joaquin Nin-Culmell; Index; photographs and drawings. Translated by Jean L. Sherman.

Samuel Pepys is as much a paragon of literature as Chaucer and Shakespeare. His Diary is one of the principal sources for many aspects of the history of its period. In spite of its significance, all previous editions were inadequately edited and suffered from a number of omissions―until Robert Latham and William Matthews went back to the 300-year-old original manuscript and deciphered each passage and phrase, no matter how obscure or indiscreet.The Diary deals with some of the most dramatic events in English history. Pepys witnessed the London Fire, the Great Plague, the Restoration of Charles II, and the Dutch Wars. He was a patron of the arts, having himself composed many delightful songs and participated in the artistic life of London. His flair for gossip and detail reveals a portrait of the times that rivals the most swashbuckling and romantic historical novels. In none of the earlier versions was there a reliable, full text, with commentary and notation with any claim to completeness. This edition, first published in 1970, is the first in which the entire diary is printed with systematic comment. This is the only complete edition available; it is as close to Pepys’s original as possible.

A renowned scholar brings to life medieval England’s most celebrated knight, William Marshal—providing an unprecedented and intimate view of this age and the legendary warrior class that shaped it.Caught on the wrong side of an English civil war and condemned by his father to the gallows at age five, William Marshal defied all odds to become one of England’s most celebrated knights. Thomas Asbridge’s rousing narrative chronicles William’s rise, using his life as a prism to view the origins, experiences, and influence of the knight in British history.In William’s day, the brutish realities of war and politics collided with romanticized myths about an Arthurian “golden age,” giving rise to a new chivalric ideal. Asbridge details the training rituals, weaponry, and battle tactics of knighthood, and explores the codes of chivalry and courtliness that shaped their daily lives. These skills were essential to survive one of the most turbulent periods in English history—an era of striking transformation, as the West emerged from the Dark Ages.A leading retainer of five English kings, Marshal served the great figures of this age, from Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine to Richard the Lionheart and his infamous brother John, and was involved in some of the most critical phases of medieval history, from the Magna Carta to the survival of the Angevin/Plantagenet dynasty. Asbridge introduces this storied knight to modern readers and places him firmly in the context of the majesty, passion, and bloody intrigue of the Middle Ages.The Greatest Knight features 16 pages of black-and-white and color illustrations.

'The Sick Rose' is a beautifully gruesome and strangely fascinating visual tour through disease in an age before colour photography. It combines detailed illustrations of afflicted patients from some of the world's rarest medical books to form an unforgettable and profoundly human reminder of mankind's struggle with disease.

Modernism and the Architecture of Private Life offers a bold new assessment of the role of the domestic sphere in modernist literature, architecture, and design. Elegantly synthesizing modernist literature with architectural plans, room designs, and decorative art, Victoria Rosner's work explores the collaborations among modern British writers, interior designers, and architects in redefining the form, function, and meaning of middle-class private life. Drawing on a host of previously unexamined archival sources and works by figures such as E. M. Forster, Roger Fry, Oscar Wilde, James McNeill Whistler, and Virginia Woolf, Rosner highlights the participation of modernist literature in the creation of an experimental, embodied, and unstructured private life, which we continue to characterize as "modern."

The mills at Wicksbridge are imaginary, but their planning, construction, and operation are quite typical of mills developed in New England throughout the nineteenth century.

Edward II (1284 1327), King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine, was the object of ignominy during his lifetime and calumny since it. Conventionally viewed as worthless, incapable of sustained policy, and significant only for his sporadic displays of ill-directed energy or a stubborn adherence to greedy and ambitious favorites, he has been presented as fit only to be deposed and replaced by someone more worthy of the throne. This definitive biography, the fruit of a lifetime s study, does not present Edward II as a heroic or successful king: his deposition after a turbulent reign of nearly twenty years is proof enough that it went terribly wrong. But Seymour Phillips scrutiny of the multitude of available sources shows that a richer picture emerges, in line with the complexity of events and of the man himself. If Edward II was not a successful king, he was not fundamentally different in many ways from most English monarchs. The biography strikes a deft balance, taking full account of the problems the king faced in England, Scotland, and Ireland and in his relations with France. It also tackles the contentious issue of whether Edward II did not die in 1327, murdered under barbaric circumstances, but lived on as a captive in England and then a wanderer on the Continent. Eight hundred years on, a king s life is properly examined."