Historical

King Harold Godwineson is one of history's shadowy figures, known mainly for his defeat and death at the Battle of Hastings. His true status and achievements have been overshadowed by the events of October 1066 and by the bias imposed by the Norman...

Brought together for the first time in one edition, both of Christabel Bielenberg's bestselling memoirs give an incredibly moving, emotionally charged and compelling insight into life in Nazi Germany during The Third Reich and during the aftermath of...

Commander Edward John Smith's career had been a remarkable example of how a man from a humble background could get far in the world. Born to a working-class family in the landlocked Staffordshire Potteries, he went to sea at the age of 17 and rose...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. 'When I was about sixteen I suddenly discovered the joy of mere words' Best known for his remarkable novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, George...

'Oh my goodness - another girl Mrs Swain!' Clara's normal iron composure broke and she screamed, 'No! That's not the bloody deal!'And that is how my nanna, Bertha Swain, entered the world.When Helen Batten's marriage breaks down, she starts on a journey...

Colm Tóibín’s personal account of encountering James Baldwin’s work, published in Baldwin’s centenary year. Acclaimed Irish novelist Colm Tóibín first read James Baldwin just after turning eighteen. He had completed his first year at an Irish university...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9782839901536Author Carol BurnellFormat HardbackPage Count 584Imprint Column HousePublisher Column House

Mary (1662-94), daughter of James, Duke of York, heir to the English throne, then 15, is said to have wept for a day and a half when she was told she was to marry her cousin, William (1650-1702), son of William II of Orange (1626-50), Stadtholder of the...

'Vividly told, engrossing history' CLARE MULLEY, author of The Women Who Flew for Hitler'Precise, empathic . . . a profoundly satisfying, albeit wistful, read and . . . a worryingly relevant one' GUARDIANA thrilling biography of Benito Mussolini's...

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...

'Stimulating, erudite and above all entertaining...For any reader tired of the seemlingly endless round of Churchill-worship' Robert HarrisA radical biography for a new generationIn A.J.P. Taylor's words, Churchill was 'the saviour of his country' when...

'A reputation as a ruthless ruler was sealed that would last beyond his lifetime. In that respect, at least, Cnut had succeeded...'Cnut, or Canute, is one of the great 'what ifs' of English history. The Dane who became King of England after a long...

Ernest Shackleton was the quintessential Edwardian hero. A contemporary - and adversary - of Scott, he sailed on the 'Discovery' expedition of 1900, and went on to mount three expeditions of his own. Like Scott, he was a social adventurer; snow and ice...

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEARA TIMES BOOK OF THE YEARA TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR A VOGUE BOOK OF THE YEAR'A rollicking read... [Ostler] tells Elizabeth's story with admirable style and gusto' Sunday Times'Terrifically entertaining: if you liked...

Like Cromwell and Wolsey before him, William Paget came from nowhere to become one of Henry VIII's most powerful 'new men'. After serving as ambassador to the Court of Francis I of France, he became Henry's most influential foreign policy advisor and...

The Civil War, the Protectorate, and the Restoration - the extraordinary upheavals at the fulcrum of English history - are embodied here in the story of a remarkable man, politician, and prisoner: the regicide Henry Marten. As an organiser of the trial...

June 1940. Britain is Europe's final bastion of freedom - and Hitler's next target. But not everyone fears a Nazi invasion. In factories, offices and suburban homes are men and women determined to do all they can to hasten it.Throughout the Second World...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780812970715Author Samuel PepysFormat PaperbackPage Count 368Imprint Modern Library IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 258g

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize "A startling work -- awesomely ambitious, faultlessly researched, daring in its thesis, and profound in its implications." - Business Week "Magnificent. . . . everything a political biography should be...

This rich biography tells the remarkable tale of Margaret Haig Thomas who became the Second Viscountess Rhondda. She was a Welsh suffragette, held important posts during the First World War and survived the sinking of the Lusitania. A leading British...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780471679653Author Mahdi ObeidiFormat HardbackPage Count 256Imprint John Wiley & Sons IncPublisher Turner Publishing CompanyWeight(grams) 454g

Storytelling kept alive the myths, legends and history of the Blasket Islands. In her old age, Peig Sayers, recounted her life to her son who recorded the tale in this book. She recalls the events of her life and her simple philosophy in a moving poetic...

On the afternoon of August 15, 1969, Richie Havens took the stage at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, welcoming a crowd of several hundred thousand to the green fields of Max Yasgur's farm. Havens was the first act - the legendary festival, years in the...

Ellen Wilkinson was a key radical figure in the 20th century British socialist and feminist movement, a woman of passionate energy who was involved in most of the major struggles of her time. Born in October 1891 into a working-class textile family,...

The third volume in the classic story of Helen Forrester's childhood and adolescence in poverty-stricken Liverpool during the 1930s. Helen Forrester continues the moving story of her early poverty-stricken life with an account of her teenage...

Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.In this extraordinary saga, Adrian Tinniswood draws on tens of thousands of letters, which survived by chance in an attic, to reveal the remarkable world of the Verneys, a family of Buckinghamshire gentry in the...

Although very little is known for certain about Pontius Pilate, the man who crucified Christ, this has not stopped writers in every age from imagining his life. In this extraordinary book, Ann Wroe recounts the lives of all our Pilates; among them the...

Thanks in part to Shakespeare, Henry V is one of England's best-known monarchs. The image of the king leading his army against the French, and the great victory at Agincourt, are part of English historical tradition. Yet, though indeed a soldier of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.AwardsWinner of National Book Critics Circle Awards.Book InformationISBN 9780394528359Author Robert A. CaroFormat HardbackPage Count 560Imprint Random House USA IncPublisher...

JAM BUTTIES AND A PAN OF SCOUSE is a gritty yet heart-warming memoir set against the backdrop of Liverpool's tightknit working-class docklands community. The story covers Maggie Clarke's upbringing in the tenements close to the docks, the River Mersey...

Few in history can match the revolutionary career of the Marquis de Lafayette. Over fifty incredible years at the heart of the Age of Revolution, he fought courageously on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a soldier, statesman, idealist, philanthropist,...

Consuelo Vanderbilt was young, beautiful and the heir to a vast family fortune. She was also deeply in love with an American suitor when her mother chose instead for her to fulfil her social ambitions and marry an English Duke. Leaving her life in...

'An exquisite portrait' MOJO 'A riveting account of the golden-boy genius' EVENING STANDARD Nick Drake was barely twenty-six years old when he died in 1974, but in his short lifetime he recorded three albums that are now recognised as classics:...

Now back in print, this comprehensive collection of essays by Simon Adams brings to life the most enigmatic of Elizabethans--Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Adams, famous for the unique depth and breadth of his research, has gathered here his most...

On 6th September 1949, twenty-eight-year-old Howard Barton Unruh shot thirteen people in less than twelve minutes on his block in East Camden, New Jersey. The shocking true story of the first recorded mass shooting in America has never been told, until...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780940322202Author Daniel Paul SchreberFormat PaperbackPage Count 488Imprint NYRB ClassicsPublisher The New York Review of Books, IncWeight(grams)...

I was told to come alone. I was not to carry any identification, and would have to leave my cell phone, audio recorder, watch, and purse at my hotel . . .For her whole life, Souad Mekhennet, a reporter for the Washington Post who was born and educated in...

Initially published on the twentieth anniversary of his death, this candid book reveals new information on the breakup of the Beatles, fellow musicians such as Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, Lennon's attitudes towards revolution and drugs, and his...

An Austro-Hungarian with a dark streak, Victor Lustig was a man of athletic good looks, with a taste for larceny and foreign intrigue. He spoke six languages and went under nearly as many aliases in the course of a continent-hopping life that also saw...

For fans of Darkest Hour and Dunkirk, discover the story of Walter H. Thompson, the man who saved Winston Churchill's life more than once.Walter H. Thompson was Churchill's bodyguard from 1921 until 1945, brought back from retirement at the outbreak of...