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This book is an invitation to the secret world behind the veil of daily events. In its pages you will meet the legendary Cagliostro and the Comte de Saint-Germain as they travel through the royal courts and Masonic lodges of eighteenth-century Europe, fomenting Revolution and working to overturn the social order of their day. Alchemists, magicians, Illuminati adepts, mystics, and Freemasons joined forces with politicians, journalists, scientists, writers, philosophers and libertines in a movement that forever altered the cultural landscape of Western civilization. Inaugurating two centuries of revolution and upheaval, the French Revolution of 1789 put an end to the concept of the divine righ...
Una Pope Hennessy's classic study of Charles Dickens remains one of the most insightful and enjoyable introductions to the life and work of this great author. Drawing on Dickens's own writings and the many biographies of him, Hennessy offers a richly detailed and engaging portrait of a literary giant. This 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 is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
'A delightful insight into an eclectic life' The Daily Telegraph 'Very funny and astute . . . a loathly feast for royal-watchers' Hilary Mantel, New Statesman Books of the Year 2018 'A complete delight, conjuring up, with a few sharp strokes of the pen, a mad, exotic species from a world gone by' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday 'Gloriously indiscreet . . . the best royal book ever' Harry Mount, Financial Times * * * When James Pope-Hennessy began his work on Queen Mary's official biography, it opened the door to meetings with royalty, court members and retainers around Europe. The series of candid observations, secrets and indiscretions contained in his notes were to be kept private for 50 years. Now published in full for the first time and edited by the highly admired royal biographer Hugo Vickers, this is a riveting, often hilarious portrait of the eccentric aristocracy of a bygone age. Giving much greater insight into Queen Mary than the official version, and including sharply observed encounters with, among others, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Duke of Gloucester, and a young Queen Elizabeth, The Quest for Queen Mary is set to be a classic of royal publishing.
A family containing six authors is special. When three of them independently become famous, the family is extraordinary. Such was the Strickland family, six sisters and two brothers, brought up in Suffolk, England with Lancastrian forbears and Canadian descendants. 'The Strickland Family' interweaves family letters, writings and newspaper items, allowing the family members to tell their own fascinating and varied life stories. Set in England and in Canada, their lives stretched from 1794 when King George III was on the throne, past celebrations for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Their father was a wealthy self-made man who believed that girls should be as well-educated as boys. Th...
Una Pope Hennessy's classic study of Charles Dickens remains one of the most insightful and enjoyable introductions to the life and work of this great author. Drawing on Dickens's own writings and the many biographies of him, Hennessy offers a richly detailed and engaging portrait of a literary giant. This 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 is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
This Life of Charles Kingsley is a detailed intellectual biography, which is at the same time a critical and contextual study. Working from the original manuscript letters, the author has placed the events of Kingsley’s life against a social-historical-religious background, paying much attention to such mid-nineteenth-century issues as geological discoveries, the Oxford Movement, biblical Higher Criticism, Chartism, sanitary reform, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, Darwinism, the American Civil War, and the anti-slavery campaigns. Analyses of Kingsley’s relationships with important contemporaries are allotted ample space, and special emphasis has been given to themes on which previous biographies have remained relatively silent. Kingsley emerges from this study as one of England’s leading nineteenth-century voices as poet, novelist, social reformer, churchman and historian.
Hassler have arranged and edited material from the notebooks to reveal the wonderful story of a literary friendship between an old master, who knew he was a "master" and who continually valued what he called the "ecstasy" of fine writing, and a would-be writer and believer.