Historical

'How refreshing, to read a book about music written for a music lover and not a musicologist. In clear, lucid, entertaining prose, Jane Glover makes those of us who lack musical literacy better understand and appreciate Handel's divinity.' - Donna Leon,...

Fighter pilots! Images of Baron Manfred von Richthofen and Eddie Rickenbacker in the Great War, Johnnie Johnson, Robert Stanford Tuck and Richard Bong in the Second World War, or Robin Olds in Vietnam, all spring to mind. Volumes have been written about...

Thomas Paine is one of the greatest political advocates in history. Declaration of the Rights of Man, first published in 1791, is the key to his reputation. Inspired by his outrage at Edmund Burke's attack on the uprising of the French people, Paine's...

**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History** "Extraordinary...a great American biography" (The New Yorker) of the most important African American of the 19th century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one...

On 2 August 1876, a young policeman named Constable Nicholas Cock was shot dead while walking 'the beat' at Whalley Range, Manchester. A few months later, on the evening of 29 November 1876, Arthur Dyson, an engineer, was murdered in his own backyard at...

Donald Maclean was a star diplomat, an establishment insider and a keeper of some of the West's greatest secrets. He was also a Russian spy...Codenamed 'Orphan' by his Russian recruiter, Maclean was Britain's most gifted traitor. But as he leaked huge...

Donald Maclean was a star diplomat, an establishment insider and a keeper of some of the West's greatest secrets. He was also a Russian spy...Codenamed 'Orphan' by his Russian recruiter, Maclean was Britain's most gifted traitor. But as he leaked huge...

The Phoenix Park in Dublin holds a special place in the collective memory of Irish people. From the assassinations of 1882 and the destruction of several imperial monuments, to the arrival of Douglas Hyde as Ireland's first president and Pope John Paul's...

Harriette Wilson was the most desired and the most dangerous woman in Regency London. This highly acclaimed biography reveals for the first time the true story behind her sensational life and scandalous 'Memoirs'. When her former lovers - including much...

A little girl is smuggled out of a Jewish ghetto. Two courageous women. And an inspirational story of survival. In 1941 at the height of World War II, in a Polish ghetto, a baby girl named Rachel is born. Her parents, Jacob and Zippa, are willing to...

The first major biography of Henry VIII least favourite wife - but the one who outlived them all. 'I like her not!' was the verdict of Henry VIII on meeting his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, for the first time. Anne could have said something similar on...

Following a youth of poverty and bitter exile after his father's execution, the ousted king first challenged, then made his magnificent escape from, Cromwell's troops before he was eventually restored to his throne in triumph in 1660.Spanning his life...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780375756771Author PlutarchFormat PaperbackPage Count 752Imprint Modern Library IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 420gDimensions(mm) 203mm *...

From the prize-winning screenwriter of The Theory of Everything and Darkest Hour, The Two Popes is a fascinating, revealing and gripping tale of two very different men whose destinies converge with each other - they both live in the Vatican - and the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780375756764Author PlutarchFormat PaperbackPage Count 816Imprint Modern Library IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 459gDimensions(mm) 204mm *...

Providing a series of fascinating views of Imperial Rome, The Letters of the Younger Pliny also offer one of the fullest self-portraits to survive from classical times. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with an introduction by Betty Radice.A...

One of them was a military genius; one murdered his mother and fiddled while Rome burned. Six of their number were assassinated, two committed suicide, and five of them were elevated to the status of gods. They have come to be known as the 'twelve...

As head of the SS, chief of police, 'Reichskommissar for the Consolidation of Germanness', and Reich Interior Minister, Heinrich Himmler enjoyed a position of almost unparalleled power and responsibility in Nazi Germany. Perhaps more than any other...

What happens when you put the Roman Empire in the hands of a teenage boy? Discover the scandalous life and times of Rome's worst emperor. 'Buy the book; it's very entertaining.' David Aaronovitch, The Times On 8 June 218 AD, a fourteen-year-old...

Kaiser Friedrich III and his consort Victoria, Princess Royal of Great Britain, had six children who lived to maturity, the eldest being Kaiser Wilhelm II. The three younger sisters, Victoria, Sophie and Margaret, were particularly supportive of their...

Winner of the Costa Biography AwardWhat makes a Stalin? Was he a Tsarist agent or Lenin's bandit? Was he to blame for his wife's death? When did the killing start? Based on revelatory research, here is the thrilling story of how a charismatic...

He did not return to Morocco for another twenty-nine years, travelling instead through more than forty countries on the modern map, covering seventy-five thousand miles and getting as far north as the Volga, as far east as China and as far south as...

'A monumental yet intimate biography, a vivid portrait of the man, the statesman and the saint' The TimesMahatma Gandhi became a legend in his own time. A tireless fighter for human rights and for Indian independence, his strategy of satyagraha, or...

NEW EDITION - FEATURING UPDATED INTRODUCTION AND NEW CHAPTERS The giant characters of history - from Mozart to Michelangelo, Shakespeare to Einstein, Henry VIII to Hitler, Catherine the Great to Margaret Thatcher, Jesus Christ to Genghis Khan - lived...

When she disappeared in 1937 over a shark-infested sea, Amelia Earhart had lived up to her wish - internationally famous, a daring and pioneering aviator, and ambassador extraordinary for the United States. Married to a man with a genius for publicity,...

A decorated First World War pilot, Hans Baur was one of the leading commercial aviators of the 1920s before being before becoming Adolf Hitler's personal pilot, a role he first undertook during the election campaign in 1932/. Hitler, who loathed flying,...

The acclaimed Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers - now in paperbackHenry VIII's reign transformed the physical and spiritual landscape of England. Magnificent, tyrannical, a strong ruler, a 'pillager of the...

Late one evening in March 1924, a tipsy young nun was seen trying to slip into Balliol, an all-male Oxford college, just as the gates were about to close for the night. The nun - subsequently unmasked as the son of the college bursar - was returning...

As a person's religious convictions, especially in times past, can be considered fundamental to their character and behaviour, the nature of King Richard III's piety has been the subject of considerable debate. Much of this controversy has focused on the...

In rural Ireland in 1950, a respectable widow has an affair with a visiting stranger. To conceal her pregnancy, she travels to Belfast, where she gives birth to a baby girl called Marie Therese. She returns to her village life, leaving her daughter to...

This is the essential fully illustrated biography of Carl Jung - one of the world's most influential thinkers and a founding father of psychology. It offers a unique insight into Jung's life and work, featuring generous excerpts from his writings and...

DON'T MISS THE MAJOR FILM INSPIRED BY CHASE'S NARRATIVE, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA On 20 November 1820, just south of the equator, the whaling ship Essex, spotted and pursued a shoal of sperm whales. As the crew started harpooning, the largest whale - some...

'A wonderful book ... Holmes sublimely illuminates Sylvia's extraordinary life' The Times 'A masterpiece' Vanessa Redgrave _______________ Born into one of Britain's most famous activist families, Sylvia Pankhurst was a natural rebel. A free...

This is the intimate and revealing autobiography of the late Margaret Rhodes, the first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and the niece of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Margaret was born into the Scottish aristocracy, into a now almost vanished world of...

From militant suffragette at the beginning of the twentieth century to campaigner against colonialism in Africa after the Second World War, Sylvia Pankhurst dedicated her life to fighting oppression and injustice. In this vivid biography Katherine...

Josephine Tey was the pen-name of Elizabeth MacKintosh (1896-1952). Born in Inverness, MacKintosh lived several lives: Best known as Golden Age Crime Fiction writer Tey, she was also successful novelist and playwright Gordon Daviot. During her...

The rise and fall of Henry's notorious minister - the most corrupt Chancellor in English history'Gripping... Hutchinson tells his story with infectious relish and vividly evokes the politics and personalities of this extraordinary decade' LITERARY...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781639361410Author Andrew LownieFormat HardbackPage Count 432Imprint Pegasus BooksPublisher Pegasus BooksWeight(grams) 635gDimensions(mm) 231mm * 145mm *...

'Master biographer Jonathan Aitken is in fine form, sympathetic, insightful, scholarly and vivid, and his book, like its subject, must be rated unobtrusively spectacular.' J. I. Packer '...meticulously researched...[Aiken] writes beautifully and...

Captain Tom Moore: fundraiser, World War Two veteran, the nation's hero. Read all about the life of Captain Tom Moore who went above and beyond for his country and the NHS. From his early life in Keighley, to the...