Biographies & Memoirs

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.

'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.

Recently a long-lost notebook belonging to Dracula author, Bram Stoker, was discovered in the attic of one of his great grandsons. Published to coincide with the Centenary of Stoker's death the text of this notebook, written between 1871 and 1881 mostly in his native Dublin, will captivate scholars of ...

Ellen Terry is perhaps the most celebrated English actress of the 19th century, and the best known member of the talented theatrical Terry family, today represented by her great-nephew Sir John Gielgud.

Every day is a new adventure - from receiving a landmine as a love token from a would-be admirer to midnight swimming in 'a small black lake, reflecting in its passive waters the millions of twinkling stars, the blue-black sky like silk spotted with polka dots'.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is a treasured charity whose mission is to save lives at sea, but what is known of its founder, Sir William Hillary?

In the Shadow of the Dreamchild uses new research to show that the long-standing image of the life of Charles Dodgson, better known to millions of fans around the world as Lewis Carroll, as exclusively child-centred and unworldly, his preoccupation with Alice Liddell, and his supposedly unnatural sexuality ...

Tara's childhood was scarred by the debilitating mental illness of her father and by her mother's death from cancer when she was thirteen. Caught up in grief and despair, Tara and her older brother Adam developed a deep, caring bond, but Adam struggled silently with growing anxiety and depression.

A portrait of the genius eighteenth-century composer focuses on his significant output of music and how it reflected his ability to master virtually all of the musical instruments of his period, and challenges myths about his health, finances, religion and relationships.

A harrowing memoir from the father of a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with child-onset schizophrenia.