19th Century

The History of Mary Prince (1831) was the first narrative of a black woman to be published in Britain. It describes Prince's sufferings as a slave in Bermuda, Turks Island and Antigua, and her eventual arrival in London with her brutal owner Mr Wood in...

The Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller on India's experience of British colonialism, by the internationally-acclaimed author and diplomat Shashi Tharoor'Tharoor's impassioned polemic slices straight to the heart of the darkness that drives all empires .....

'One of the best history books you will read this decade' History Today'Fascinating, suspenseful, revelatory, alive' The TimesThere can be few more exciting or frightening moments in European history than the spring of 1848. As if by magic, in city after...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'This is my kind of history: carefully researched but so vivid that you are convinced Lucy Worsley was actually there at the party - or the parsonage.' Antonia Fraser'A refreshingly unique perspective on Austen and her work and...

With a foreword by William Boyd'Gripping and revelatory' Tom Holland'As convoluted and deadly as the plot of a novel by John le Carre, but all too real' Daily Mail, Must Reads'With a gripping narrative and vivid interviews with those on all sides whose...

A gripping eyewitness account of a major 20th-century military conflict by the UK's most popular writer on geopolitics; The shattering of Yugoslavia in the 1990s showed that, after nearly 50 years of peace, war could return to Europe. It came to its...

'Fascinating... One of the most astute political commentators on Putin and modern Russia' Financial Times'An amazing achievement' Peter FrankopanCan anyone truly understand Russia?Russia is a country with no natural borders, no single ethos, no true...

Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, Richard Holmes's dazzling portrait of the age of great scientific discovery is a groundbreaking achievement. The book opens with Joseph Banks,...

A facsimile edition of Bradshaw's fascinating guide to Europe's rail network. Bradshaw's descriptive railway handbook of Europe was originally published in 1913 and was the inspiration behind Michael Portillo's BBC television series 'Great Continental...

'A Napoleonic triumph of a book, irresistibly galloping with the momentum of a cavalry charge' Simon Sebag Montefiore'Simply dynamite' Bernard CornwellFrom Andrew Roberts, author of the bestsellers The Storm of War and Churchill: Walking with Destiny,...

The Sunday Times Number 1 Bestseller 'A fabulous story, superbly told ... cannot be bettered' Max Hastings 'Some battles change nothing. Waterloo changed almost everything.' ...

'This is probably the best book ever written on the Habsburgs in any language, certainly the best I have ever read ... Students, scholars and the general reader will never find a better guide to Habsburg history' Alan Sked, Times Literary SupplementIn...

'A scintillating, encyclopaedic history, rich in detail from the arcane to the familiar... a veritable tour de force' Richard Overy, New Statesman'Transnational history at its finest ... .. social, political and cultural themes swirl together in one...

Before 1871, Germany was not yet a nation but simply an idea. Otto von Bismarck had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring thirty-nine individual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser? Once united, could the young European nation wield enough...

'A superb account of the 1860 Damascus massacres-much neglected nowadays but central to the creation of the modern Middle East' - Simon Sebag Montefiore'A stunning portrait of the Ottoman Empire and of Damascus during a time of crisis. Absolutely...

The Peninsular War is one of the defining campaigns of the British Army and sealed its reputation for supreme professionalism, heroic obstinacy and sheer perseverance. It made the reputation of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, and acts as the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781911628248Author Gurinder Singh MannFormat PaperbackPage Count 112Imprint Helion & CompanyPublisher Helion & Company

Written in 1857, this is the autobiography of a Jamaican woman whose fame rivalled Florence Nightingale's during the Crimean War. Seacole's offer to volunteer as a nurse in the war met with racism and refusal. Undaunted, Seacole set out independently to...

From Dr Annie Gray, presenter of BBC2's Victorian Bakers What does it mean to eat like a queen? Elizabeth gorged on sugar, Mary on chocolate and Anne was known as 'Brandy Nan'. Victoria ate all of this and more. The Greedy Queen celebrates Victoria's...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 AND THE RUNCIMAN AWARD 2021A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this...

A history of the Habsburg monarchy from the end of the Holy Roman Empire to the monarchy's dissolution in 1918. The book offers an insight into the problems inherent in the attempt to give peace, stability and common loyalty to a hetergeneous population...

Six Records of a Floating Life (1809) is an extraordinary blend of autobiography, love story and social document written by a man who was educated as a scholar but earned his living as a civil servant and art dealer. In this intimate memoir, Shen Fu...

Published in the 200th Anniversary year of the Battle of Waterloo a witty look at how the French still think they won, by Stephen Clarke, author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French and A Year in the Merde.Two centuries after the Battle of Waterloo, the...

THIS HEARTBREAKING, HEARTWARMING, TRUE STORY FOLLOWING THE HISTORY OF A FAMILY IN WALES IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS EVER WRITTEN.'I am a proud supporter of our National Health Service which has shown yet again what an important and valued...

Adam Zamoyski first wrote his history of Poland two years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. This substantially revised and updated edition sets the Soviet era in the context of the rise, fall and remarkable rebirth of an indomitable nation. ...

A passionate history of Judaism; a world unfolding across many continents and five centuries by one of our greatest and internationally bestselling historians.Belonging is a magnificent cultural history abundantly alive with energy, character and colour...

THE ENCHANTING NEW NOVEL BY THE AUTHOR OF THE 2022 WATERSTONES SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR, THE FAIR BOTANISTS.'Gripping' Good Housekeeping'Secrets discovered, ruinous rumours scotched, happiness regained and friendships founded' Daily Mail'A novel of...

'We are a trading community, a commercial people. Murder is doubtless a very shocking offence, nevertheless as what is done is not to be undone, let us make our money out of it.' Punch Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as...

'It is a story full of drama, with the Nile, the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings as backdrop. That A World Beneath the Sands is also a subtle and stimulating study of the paradoxes of 19th-century colonialism is a bonus indeed.' - Tom Holland,...

TRAVEL BACK IN TIME WITH THE BBC'S RUTH GOODMANWe know what life was like for Victoria and Albert. But what was it like for a commoner - like you or me?How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your...

_______________ WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK _______________ 'A remarkable achievement' - Sunday Times 'A classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary...

In the mid-eighteenth century, most of the Mediterranean coastline and its hinterlands were controlled by the Ottoman Empire, a vast Islamic power regarded by Christian Europe with awe and fear. By the end of the First World War, however, this great...

The bestselling social history of Victorian domestic life, told through the letters, diaries, journals and novels of 19th-century men and women. The Victorian age is both recent and unimaginably distant. In the most prosperous and...

This book describes and illustrates the armies of the embattled Ottoman Turkish Empire involved in 19th-century wars during the Empire's long spiral of decline. During the so called 'long 19th century', between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815...

William Morris (1834–96) was an English poet, decorative artist, translator, romance writer, book designer, preservationist, socialist theorist, and political activist, whose admirers have been drawn to the sheer intensity of his artistic endeavors and...

Life of one of the greatest British Prime Ministers - by an author who knows the scene from his years as a senior Minister in Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet.Robert Peel, as much as any man in the nineteenth century, transformed Great Britain into a modern...

The first of two ground-breaking, prize-winning volumes on the Waterloo campaign, this book is based upon a detailed analysis of sources old and new in four languages. It highlights the political stresses between the Allies and their resolution,...

'Hilarious, heartbreaking and utterly extraordinary.' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times Books of the Year'Superbly entertaining.' Financial Times'Jaw-dropping.' Sunday Times'Fascinating.' Guardian'Gripping.' The Times'Terrific . . . A page-turning history...

Shortlised for the Saltire Society Non Fiction Book of the Year Award Almost every adult and child is familiar with his Treasure Island, but few know that Robert Louis Stevenson lived out his last years on an equally remote island, which was squabbled...

'A wonderfully fresh, vivid and engaging portrait.' Jane Ridley, author of Bertie: A Life of Edward VII'Has much of the abundant charm of its author.' Spectator'The glory of this book is in the details.' The Times'Worsley's command of the material and...