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Diary of Samuel Pepys -- Volume 01: Preface and Life
by Samuel PepysRichard Le Gallienne’s elegant abridgment of the Diary captures the essential writings of Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), a remarkable man who witnessed the coronation of Charles II, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666. Originally scribbled in a cryptic shorthand, Pepys’s quotidian journal of life in Restoration London provides an astonishingly frank and diverting account of political intrigues; naval, church, and cultural affairs; and the sexual escapades and domestic strife of a man with a voracious, childlike appetite for living. “As a human document the Diary is literally unique,” notes Le Gallienne. “It will have a still greater value for its historical importance.”
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Volume 8
by Samuel PepysThis work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944: Collaboration, Resistance, and Daily Life in Occupied Paris
by Jean GuéhennoWinner of the French-American Foundation Translation Prize for Nonfiction Jean Guéhenno's Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1945 is the most oft-quoted piece of testimony on life in occupied France. A sharply observed record of day-to-day life under Nazi rule in Paris and a bitter commentary on literary life in those years, it has also been called "a remarkable essay on courage and cowardice" (Caroline Moorehead, Wall Street Journal). Here, David Ball provides not only the first English-translation of this important historical document, but also the first ever annotated, corrected edition. Guéhenno was a well-known political and cultural critic, left-wing but not communist, and uncompromisingly anti-fascist. Unlike most French writers during the Occupation, he refused to pen a word for a publishing industry under Nazi control. He expressed his intellectual, moral, and emotional resistance in this diary: his shame at the Vichy government's collaboration with Nazi Germany, his contempt for its falsely patriotic reactionary ideology, his outrage at its anti-Semitism and its vilification of the Republic it had abolished, his horror at its increasingly savage repression and his disgust with his fellow intellectuals who kept on blithely writing about art and culture as if the Occupation did not exist - not to mention those who praised their new masters in prose and poetry. Also a teacher of French literature, he constantly observed the young people he taught, sometimes saddened by their conformism but always passionately trying to inspire them with the values of the French cultural tradition he loved. Guéhenno's diary often includes his own reflections on the great texts he is teaching, instilling them with special meaning in the context of the Occupation. Complete with meticulous notes and a biographical index, Ball's edition of Guéhenno's epic diary offers readers a deeper understanding not only of the diarist's cultural allusions, but also of the dramatic, historic events through which he lived.
Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944: Collaboration, Resistance, and Daily Life in Occupied Paris
by Jean GuéhennoWinner of the French-American Foundation Translation Prize for Nonfiction Jean Guéhenno's Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1945 is the most oft-quoted piece of testimony on life in occupied France. A sharply observed record of day-to-day life under Nazi rule in Paris and a bitter commentary on literary life in those years, it has also been called "a remarkable essay on courage and cowardice" (Caroline Moorehead, Wall Street Journal). Here, David Ball provides not only the first English-translation of this important historical document, but also the first ever annotated, corrected edition. Guéhenno was a well-known political and cultural critic, left-wing but not communist, and uncompromisingly anti-fascist. Unlike most French writers during the Occupation, he refused to pen a word for a publishing industry under Nazi control. He expressed his intellectual, moral, and emotional resistance in this diary: his shame at the Vichy government's collaboration with Nazi Germany, his contempt for its falsely patriotic reactionary ideology, his outrage at its anti-Semitism and its vilification of the Republic it had abolished, his horror at its increasingly savage repression and his disgust with his fellow intellectuals who kept on blithely writing about art and culture as if the Occupation did not exist - not to mention those who praised their new masters in prose and poetry. Also a teacher of French literature, he constantly observed the young people he taught, sometimes saddened by their conformism but always passionately trying to inspire them with the values of the French cultural tradition he loved. Guéhenno's diary often includes his own reflections on the great texts he is teaching, instilling them with special meaning in the context of the Occupation. Complete with meticulous notes and a biographical index, Ball's edition of Guéhenno's epic diary offers readers a deeper understanding not only of the diarist's cultural allusions, but also of the dramatic, historic events through which he lived.
A Diary of The Lady: My First Year As Editor
by Rachel JohnsonRachel Johnson takes on the challenge of saving The Lady, Britain's oldest women's weekly, in her hilarious diary, A Diary of The Lady: My First Year and a Half as Editor.'The whole place seemed completely bonkers: dusty, tatty, disorganized and impossibly old-fashioned, set in an age of doilies and flag-waving patriotism and jam still for tea, some sunny day.'Appointed editor of The Lady - the oldest women's weekly in the world - Rachel Johnson faced the challenge of a lifetime. For a start, how do you become an editor when you've never, well, edited? How do you turn a venerable title, full of ads for walk-in baths, during the worst recession ever? And forget doubling the circulation in a year - what on earth do you wear to work when you've spent the last fifteen years at home in sweatpants?Will Rachel save The Lady - or sink it?'Action-packed, entertaining, marvellously indiscreet. Johnson is everything you want in a diarist and has a compulsive habit of saying the wrong thing' Sunday Times'She's a loose cannon. All she thinks of is sex. You can't get her away from a penis' Mrs Julia Budworth, co-owner, The Lady'A total romp, wonderfully readable, unflinchingly described' Guardian'HYSTERICAL. For the first time, everyone is talking about The Lady for reasons other than nannies' Piers MorganRachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.
The Diary of Two Nobodies
by Mary Killen Giles WoodWelcome to Giles and Mary reality.Giles is a countryman who relishes solitude. His wife Mary thrives in company and enjoys frequent escapes to London.After thirty years in a marriage of opposites, Giles and Mary have adapted to a life of domestic misunderstandings within comical misadventures.In The Diary of Two Nobodies, you will have the unique opportunity to discover, first hand, what occurs when a man who sees himself as a cross between Mr Bean and Basil Fawlty shares his life with a woman who identifies closely with the Queen.Featuring original illustrations by the artist Giles, himself.
The Diary of William Young of Cotchford Farm
by Kevin LastWilliam Young was the son of gentleman farmer Henry Young who owned Cotchford Farm in the mid-nineteenth century. At the age of just twenty-three William left the farm for what we might now term a 'gap year’ working in Canada. This book, based on his own diary from 1854/5, tells the fascinating story of his journey via Liverpool and onwards on a three-masted schooner to New York, Buffalo and eventually Lake Erie. The voyage had its own perils, a long way from transatlantic travel today. Unbeknown to our diarist, the ship he travelled on was part of a criminal enterprise and eventually suffered both mutiny and wreck. In the mill towns on Lake Erie Young proves an indispensable worker both on crops and stonework. Just as he is about to return to England he is beset with difficulties..... His is a young, clear voice on life a hundred and sixty years ago.
Diary Poetics: Form and Style in Writers� Diaries, 1915-1962 (Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature)
by Anna JacksonThe diary is a genre that is often thought of as virtually formless, a "capacious hold-all" for the writer’s thoughts, and as offering unmediated access to the diarist’s true self. Focusing on the diaries of Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Antonia White, Joe Orton, John Cheever, and Sylvia Plath, this book looks at how six very different professional writers have approached the diary form with its particular demands and literary potential. As a sequence of separate entries the diary is made up of both gaps and continuities, and the different ways diarists negotiate these aspects of the diary form has radical effects on how their diaries represent both the world and the biographical self. The different published editions of the diaries by Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath show how editorial decisions can construct sometimes startlingly different biographical portraits. Yet all diaries are constructed, and all diary constructions depend on how the writer works with the diary form.
Diary Poetics: Form and Style in Writers� Diaries, 1915-1962 (Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature #12)
by Anna JacksonThe diary is a genre that is often thought of as virtually formless, a "capacious hold-all" for the writer’s thoughts, and as offering unmediated access to the diarist’s true self. Focusing on the diaries of Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Antonia White, Joe Orton, John Cheever, and Sylvia Plath, this book looks at how six very different professional writers have approached the diary form with its particular demands and literary potential. As a sequence of separate entries the diary is made up of both gaps and continuities, and the different ways diarists negotiate these aspects of the diary form has radical effects on how their diaries represent both the world and the biographical self. The different published editions of the diaries by Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath show how editorial decisions can construct sometimes startlingly different biographical portraits. Yet all diaries are constructed, and all diary constructions depend on how the writer works with the diary form.
Dick Taverne: Politics and Beyond: A Memoir
by Dick TaverneIn 1973, Labour MP Dick Taverne caused a national sensation when he stood against his own party as an independent to win a historic by-election in Lincoln. Demonstrating the power of the individual against party politics, his bold move was a forerunner for the formation of the SDP some eight years later and cemented his own place in political history. Peppered with entertaining anecdotes, Against the Tide sets Taverne's political battles in the context of a rich and varied life. After studying at Oxford University, Taverne juggled a legal career while taking his first steps in politics, before serving in Harold Wilson's government during the 1960s. His later achievements included the launch of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the founding of the charity Sense About Science, whose objective of advancing public understanding of science continues to inform public debate today. Still an active member of the House of Lords, Dick Taverne presents a thoughtful and compelling memoir, as well as a measured account of fraught and turbulent times.
Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius
by Nick HornbyWhat could possibly connect Prince, the great twentieth century singer songwriter, and Charles Dickens, the great writer of classics usually stuffed into the hands of adolescents too early? What could these two geniuses, one born in 1812 in England, and the other in 1950s Minneapolis, have in common?For Nick Hornby, Dickens and Prince are two artists that compare to no others. At the young age of 24, they both had their breakthroughs, Prince with '1999' and Dickens with The Pickwick Papers. At 26, Prince released 'Purple Rain' and Dickens' Oliver Twist was published, and, by 30, both artists were huge stars.No one else had such a relentless work ethic and produced such a staggeringly original and enormous body of work. Where did their magic come from? How did they use it? And, in the end, did it kill them?Tracing their lives, from the early years to their relationships with women, their finances to their inability to stop working, Dickens and Prince is a brilliantly surprising and joyous uncovering of the essence of a very particular and unique type of genius.
Dickens the Novelist: The Novelist (Peregrine Bks.)
by F. R. LeavisIn The Great Tradition, published in 1948, F. R. Leavis seemed to rate the work of Charles Dickens - with the exception of Hard Times - as lacking the seriousness and formal control of the true masters of English fiction. By 1970, when Dickens the Novelist was published on the first centenary of the writer's death, Leavis and his lifelong collaborator Q. D. (Queenie) Leavis, had changed their minds. 'Our purpose', they wrote, 'is to enforce as unanswerably as possible the conviction that Dickens was one of the greatest of creative writers . . .'In seven typically robust and uncompromising chapters, the Leavises grapple with the evaluation of a writer who was then still open to dismissal as a mere entertainer, a caricaturist not worthy of discussion in the same breath as Henry James. Q. D. Leavis shows, for example, how deeply influential David Copperfield was on the work of Tolstoy, and explores the symbolic richness of the nightmare world of Bleak House. F. R. Leavis reprints his famous essay on Hard Times, with its moral critique of utilitarianism, and reveals the imaginative influence of Blake on Little Dorrit. Q. D. Leavis contributes a pathbreaking chapter on the importance of Dickens's illustrators to the effect of his work.
Dickensland: The Curious History of Dickens's London
by Lee JacksonThe intriguing history of Dickens’s London, showing how tourists have reimagined and reinvented the Dickensian metropolis for more than 150 years Tourists have sought out the landmarks, streets, and alleys of Charles Dickens’s London ever since the death of the world-renowned author. Late Victorians and Edwardians were obsessed with tracking down the locations—dubbed “Dickensland”—that famously featured in his novels. But his fans were faced with a city that was undergoing rapid redevelopment, where literary shrines were far from sacred. Over the following century, sites connected with Dickens were demolished, relocated, and reimagined. Lee Jackson traces the fascinating history of Dickensian tourism, exploring both real Victorian London and a fictional city shaped by fandom, tourism, and heritage entrepreneurs. Beginning with the late nineteenth century, Jackson investigates key sites of literary pilgrimage and their relationship with Dickens and his work, revealing hidden, reinvented, and even faked locations. From vanishing coaching inns to submerged riverside stairs, hidden burial grounds to apocryphal shops, Dickensland charts the curious history of an imaginary world.
Dickie Bird Autobiography: An honest and frank story
by Dickie BirdDickie Bird's retirement was an international event shown on TV screens and newspapers throughout the world. He is a household name, an eccentric, and one of the most loved and respected characters in world cricket. His idiosyncratic style and infectious humour has endeared him to millions, transcending his sport.Fiercely proud of his background as a Yorkshire miner's son, his account follows his youth in Barnsley, his early days as a cricketer, through to his career as an umpire and his experiences of the international scene, all told with total honesty by this very private person. As the most respected umpire in the game, Dickie has serious and constructive points to make about modern cricket. He has fearlessly berated fast-bowlers when necessary. He has some sharp comments to make about ball tampering and he has mixed feelings about the introduction of the third umpire. Dickie wanted to go out at the top and he has certainly done so - after standing at 66 Test matches, three World Cup finals and 92 one-day Internationals.Combining forthright views on the game and those involved in it, compelling accounts of what it is like behind the scenes in cricket at the highest level, and the hilarious stories for which Dickie is so well known, here is the refreshing and enjoyable autobiography of a sporting legend.
Dickory Cronke: The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder
by Daniel DefoeSynopsis not available
Dictator: From the Sunday Times bestselling author (Cicero Trilogy #3)
by Robert HarrisPRE-ORDER PRECIPICE, THE THRILLING NEW NOVEL FROM ROBERT HARRIS, NOW - PUBLISHING AUGUST 2024'Confirms Harris's undisputed place as our leading master of both the historical and contemporary thriller' Daily Mail'Climatic in every sense . . . I could not put it down' GuardianThere was a time when Cicero held Caesar's life in the palm of his hand. But now Caesar is the dominant figure and Cicero's life is in ruins. Cicero's comeback requires wit, skill and courage. And for a brief and glorious period, the legendary orator is once more the supreme senator in Rome. But politics is never static. And no statesman, however cunning, can safeguard against the ambition and corruption of others.'The finest fictional treatment of Ancient Rome in the English language' The Scotsman
The Dictator, the Revolution, the Machine: A Political Account of Joseph Stalin
by Tony McKennaIt is a commonplace wisdom that from the authoritarian roots of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 grew the gulags and the police state of the Stalinist epoch. The Dictator, the Revolution, The Machine overturns that perspective once and for all by showing how October was inspired by a profound mass movement comprised of urban workers and rural poor -- a movement that went on to forge a state capable of channelling its political will in and through the most overwhelming form of grass-roots democracy history has ever known. It was a single, precarious experiment whose life was tragically brief. In a context of civil war and foreign invasion the fledgling democracy was eradicated and the Bolshevik party was denuded of its social basis -- the working classes. While the party survived, its centrist elements came to the fore as the power of the bureaucracy asserted itself. From the ashes of human freedom there arose a zombified, sclerotic administration in which state functionaries took precedence over elected representatives. One man came to embody the inverted logic of this bureaucratic machine, its remorseless brutality and its parasitic drive for power. Joseph Stalin was its highest expression, accruing to himself state powers as he made his murderous, heady rise to dictator. This book examines his historical profile, its roots in Georgian medievalism, and shows why Stalin was destined to play the role he did. In broader strokes Tony McKenna raises the conflict between the revolutionary movement and the bureaucracy to the level of a literary tragedy played out on the stage of world history, showing how Stalinism's victory would pave the way for the Midnight of the Century.
The Dictator, the Revolution, the Machine: A Political Account of Joseph Stalin
by Tony McKennaIt is a commonplace wisdom that from the authoritarian roots of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 grew the gulags and the police state of the Stalinist epoch. The Dictator, the Revolution, The Machine overturns that perspective once and for all by showing how October was inspired by a profound mass movement comprised of urban workers and rural poor -- a movement that went on to forge a state capable of channelling its political will in and through the most overwhelming form of grass-roots democracy history has ever known. It was a single, precarious experiment whose life was tragically brief. In a context of civil war and foreign invasion the fledgling democracy was eradicated and the Bolshevik party was denuded of its social basis -- the working classes. While the party survived, its centrist elements came to the fore as the power of the bureaucracy asserted itself. From the ashes of human freedom there arose a zombified, sclerotic administration in which state functionaries took precedence over elected representatives. One man came to embody the inverted logic of this bureaucratic machine, its remorseless brutality and its parasitic drive for power. Joseph Stalin was its highest expression, accruing to himself state powers as he made his murderous, heady rise to dictator. This book examines his historical profile, its roots in Georgian medievalism, and shows why Stalin was destined to play the role he did. In broader strokes Tony McKenna raises the conflict between the revolutionary movement and the bureaucracy to the level of a literary tragedy played out on the stage of world history, showing how Stalinism's victory would pave the way for the Midnight of the Century.
The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
by Alastair Smith Bruce Bueno de MesquitaA groundbreaking new theory of the real rules of politics: leaders do whatever keeps them in power, regardless of the national interest.As featured on the viral video Rules for Rulers, which has been viewed over 3 million times.Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith's canonical book on political science turned conventional wisdom on its head. They started from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don't care about the "national interest"-or even their subjects-unless they have to. This clever and accessible book shows that democracy is essentially just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.
The Dictionary People: LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024
by Sarah Ogilvie**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024**'Enthralling and exuberant ... Here is a wonder-book for word-lovers' Jeanette Winterson‘A lively, entertaining, and illuminating read. I loved it’ Susie DentWhat do three murderers, Karl Marx's daughter and a vegetarian vicar have in common?They all helped create the Oxford English Dictionary.The Oxford English Dictionary has long been associated with elite institutions and Victorian men. But the Dictionary didn't just belong to the experts; it relied on contributions from members of the public. By 1928, its 414,825 entries had been crowdsourced from a surprising and diverse group of people, from astronomers to murderers, naturists, pornographers, suffragists and queer couples.Lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie dives deep into previously untapped archives to tell a people's history of the OED. Here, she reveals, for the first time, the full story of the making of one of the most famous books in the world - and celebrates the extraordinary efforts of the Dictionary People.** A Financial Times, TLS and Daunt Books Book of the Year 2023 **'Utterly fascinating, entertaining, astonishing and as clever as a box of monkeys ... I completely love it' Joanna Lumley'Full marks to Sarah Ogilvie... guaranteed to grab those of us obsessed with books, language and mystery' Financial Times'[An] astonishing book' Sunday Times'Touching ... The oddities [of language] enliven the book' Observer *Book of the Day*'[An] affectionate and accomplished book' TLS'Engaging' Spectator'Marvellous, witty and wholly original' Alan Rusbridger'Glorious and surprising' Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian and author of Burning the Books‘A fascinating and delightful exploration of the Victorian world … Wonderful’ Nicola Shulman, TLS Podcast
Did I Ever Tell You This?
by Sam Neill‘Just wonderful, so funny and charming. Sam Neill's lively, lovely book made me laugh out loud’ MERYL STREEPDead Calm The Hunt for Red October The Piano Jurassic ParkFor over forty years, Sam Neill’s name has been a hallmark of quality. From enduring blockbusters to arthouse and cult classics, his work has taken him all over the world, working with Hollywood’s greats.In Did I Ever Tell You This? he invites us in, sharing stories from an extraordinary life with heaps of charm, honesty and a good-humoured appreciation for the absurd.‘Sam Neill is a legend, and in this magnificent book he shares his stories of family, friends and film’ LAURA DERN‘Charming. A transparently lovely man, with a life hectically well lived’ Mail on Sunday‘A fabulously entertaining, insanely readable memoir’ STEPHEN FRY‘Really, really, really funny. There are some cracking stories’ LORRAINE KELLY‘I love this book. A real treat. Fantastic’ GRAHAM NORTON
Did She Kill Him?: A Victorian tale of deception, adultery and arsenic
by Kate ColquhounIn the summer of 1889, young Southern belle Florence Maybrick stood trial for the alleged arsenic poisoning of her much older husband, Liverpool cotton merchant James Maybrick. 'The Maybrick Mystery' had all the makings of a sensation: a pretty, flirtatious young girl; resentful, gossiping servants; rumours of gambling and debt; and torrid mutual infidelity. The case cracked the varnish of Victorian respectability, shocking and exciting the public in equal measure as they clambered to read the latest revelations of Florence's past and glimpse her likeness in Madame Tussaud's. Florence's fate was fiercely debated in the courtroom, on the front pages of the newspapers and in parlours and backyards across the country. Did she poison her husband? Was her previous infidelity proof of murderous intentions? Was James' own habit of self-medicating to blame for his demise? Historian Kate Colquhoun recounts an utterly absorbing tale of addiction, deception and adultery that keeps you asking to the very last page, did she kill him?
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?
by Seamas O'Reilly'A gorgeous memoir' Pandora Sykes'Tender, sad and side-splittingly funny' Annie MacManus'A heartfelt tribute to an alarmingly large family held together by a quietly heroic father' Arthur Mathews, co-creator of Father Ted and Toast of LondonSéamas O'Reilly's mother died when he was five, leaving him, his ten brothers and sisters and their beloved father in their sprawling bungalow in rural Derry. It was the 1990s; the Troubles were a background rumble (most of the time), and Séamas at that point was more preoccupied with dinosaurs, Star Wars and the actual location of heaven than the political climate.Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is a book about a family of argumentative, loud, musical, sarcastic, grief-stricken siblings, shepherded into adulthood by a man whose foibles and reticence were matched only by his love for his children and his determination that they would flourish. It is the moving, often amusing and completely unsentimental story of a boy growing up in a family bonded by love, loss and fairly relentless mockery.'Not only hilarious, tender, absurd, delightful and charming, but written with such skill as to render it unforgettable' Nina Stibbe, author of Reasons to be Cheerful 'Grotesquely funny' Sophie Heawood, author of The Hungover Games