Biographies & Memoirs

AUTOBIOGRAPHY: GENERAL. With echoes of The Go-Between, this touching short memoir tells the story of a young boy who is invited to stay with a school friend during the summer holidays and finds himself at Chartwell, the family home of Winston Churchill. Jonathan Dudley was eight years old at the time ...

In this memoir of his childhood, O'Driscoll eloquently examines his troubled relationship with his father, whose bullying and mental abuse have affected him profoundly throughout his life. The task the author has undertaken is to give voice to the voiceless: to express the unnerving pent-up emotions he was unable to express as a child.

Dr Peake's memoirs published for the first time.

An unflinching look at the way we conduct war today. Part memoir, part reportage, part elegy for lost youth, Pumpkinflowers powerful narrative captures the birth of today's chaotic Middle East and the rise of a 21st century type of war in which there is never a clear victor, and innocence is not the only casualty.

The Black Mirror is a deeply moving and startlingly original celebration of everyday life, by one of our leading thinkers and writers, who has been described as 'One of Britain's greatest intellectual all-rounders... Someone who comes closer than most ever will to knowing everything' (Independent)

In the Blood is Andrew Motion's beautifully written memoir of growing up in post-war England - an unforgettable evocation of family life, school life and country life.

This new critical biography examines Miller's intense immersion in esoteric and theosophical interests, charting the cultivation of these ideas from his boyhood and adolescence to late in his career and evaluating the way in which his writings and lifestyle were influenced by his spiritual quests.

A short authoritative biography of the author

Two days before Christmas 2013, former MP Denis MacShane entered one of Europe's harshest prisons. Having pleaded guilty to false accounting at the Old Bailey, he had been sentenced to six months in jail. Upon arrival at Belmarsh Prison, his books and personal possessions were confiscated and he was ...

Peth, 1899: a prisoner reads an inquest into the strange death of a public servant with the same name. Who really was the deceased? Was it possible he was 'Captain Starlight' who, thirty years earlier, had callously murdered a policeman and been sentenced to hang? How had he pulled off the subterfuge and what other secrets remained hidden?

Paperback edition of the Sunday Times Political Book of the Year

A unique civilian's eye-view of World War I, depicting, through heartfelt letters from an American woman, a fascinating before and after picture of a French community in disarray What looked impossible is evidently coming to pass . . . I silently returned to my garden and sat down. War again! This time ...

In this book, two Dickens scholars examine the fascinating life of this hugely popular literary figure. Born in Portsmouth in 1812, Dickens rose to fame within his lifetime and, to the present day, has never been out of print.

The latest in Hesperus’s On series comes from master travel writer Mark Twain and concentrates on his journey through the Wild West From 1861 to 1867, a young Mark Twain traveled through the Wild West. Following an abortive foray into a career as a Confederate Cavalry man he opted instead to head off ...

A comprehensive view of the mythical and historic significance of the great medieval queen.

A vivid portrait of a politician, poet, adventurer and family man.

'The Children of Lovers are Orphans.' Proverb

Bestselling novelist, author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding was a famously acute observer of children.

The autobiographic story of one uneducated man's inspiring and eventful journey to an education in adulthood.