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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Vivienne Westwood, Hilary Mantel, Nicholas Garlick, Sir Samuel Hill-Wood, 1st Baronet, the Bodines, Keith Briggs, Paul Raymond, Frederick Baltimore Calvert, Terry Fogerty, Charles Calvert, Matthew Ellison Hadfield, Ian Gibson, David Darling, Thomas Foster (Cricketer, Born 1848), John Eyre (Cricketer, Born 1944), Michael Bowler, Albert Hobson, James Vincent, Irvine Dearnaley, David Wilde, Nellie Unthank, Thomas Howarth, William Walton, Thomas Smith (Cricketer, Born 1848), Eileen Cooper, James Braddock, Matthew Walton. Excerpt:Albert Hobson Albert Hobson (born April 7, 1925 in Glossop , England ) is an English former footballer who played for Blackpool , Huddersfield Town and York City . Career Hobson started his career with Blackpool in August 1945. He joined Huddersfield Town in July 1954 and finally moved to York City in March 1956. Notes A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at Charles Calvert (and family) Charles Calvert (1785-1852) was a landscape-painter, born at Glossop Hall in Derbyshire , on 23 September 1785. He was the eldest son of Charles Calvert, agent of the Duke of Norfolk 's estate and an amateur painter (see below). He was apprenticed to the cotton trade, and began busfness as a cotton merchant in Manchester , but against the wishes of his friends he abandoned commerce for art and became a landscape-painter. Charles was one of those instrumental in the foundation of the Manchester Royal Institution (which has since become the Manchester City Art Gallery , and he gained the Heywood gold medal for a landscape in oil, and the Heywood silver medal for a landscape in water colour. Much of his time was necessarily devoted to teaching, but all the moments that could be spared from it were passed in the lake districts. Even in his later years, when confined to his ... ... Read more

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In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Fantastic
Imogen Gresham is 37, married to a very successful barrister. They have an eleven-year-old son, a rather beastly boy named Gavin. Imogen's husband, Evelyn, develops a friendship with their neighbor, a wealthy fifty-something-year-old spinster named Blanche Silcox. She and Imogen are completely opposite; and it's Evelyn's relationship with Blanche that colors the whole tone of his relationship with his wife.

Imogen is a domestic, preferring home over hunting or any of the other country pursuits that her husband engages in. It's partly due to this as well that their relationship becomes fraught with tension. They have nothing in common, so it's really no wonder that Evelyn turns to an older woman (one much closer in age to him than Imogen is) for, at the very least, friendship. It's an odd affair; usually the femme fatale is a younger, not some staid, aging spinster. So the whole dynamic of the novel shifts. It's perfectly natural that Evelyn and Blanche should become friends; but their relationship isn't wholly natural. I still can't quite figure things out.

What I loved about this book was Imogen's reaction to the whole affair; it's because of it, and her discovery of what's going on, that she grows and matures as a person. When I began to read this novel, Imogen more or less faded into the background; she really wasn't compelling enough as a main character, and so I really didn't become attached to her right away. But the more I read, the more I liked her. She displays a quiet strength as she faces Evelyn and Blache's affair hat I found quite admirable. I don't think that a lot of people in her situation, with her kind of personality, would have the strength to do what she does in the end. And she gets major points for putting up with Evelyn for all those years! Elizabeth Jenkins has been compared to Jane Austen and Barbara Pym; there's less humor in The Tortoise and the Hare, but it's still a wonderful novel.

Elizabeth Jenkins was a biographer who was best known for her biographies of Elizabeth I and Jane Austen. She passed away last month, aged 105.

A Wonderful Book That Should Be Better Known
The obit pages are an important source of leads for great yet undeservedly obscure books. That was where I learned of The Tortoise and the Hare by the recently deceased Elizabeth Jenkins, whom I already knew of as the author of a wonderfulbiography ofJane Austen. I finished reading The Tortoise and the Hare last night, rather too late, and am still under its spell. Such a book should not be forgotten, yet it largely is.

What made it at once so much fun to read and so satisfying as a work of art? The sly humor, the use of telling detail, and the aptness of the social observation,though it describes a world that is both unfamiliar to me and long vanished (English, upper-middle class, late 1940s or early 50s) The subtle way the story is told.The ending. Especially, the ending. It is a truly magnificent ending, which surprised me, for all along, though I was enjoying the journey the book was taking me on, I kept feeling the structure -- the plot -- was odd. Unusual. Where was she going with this?

The novel tells the story of about a year in the life of Imogen, a sensitive and attractive woman of 37, married to Evelyn, a successful lawyer 15 years older, and her gradually dawning horror and despair as she realizes she is losing her husband to an unlikely rival: a never-married, badly dressed, unattractive neighbor, Blanche, age 50. Blanche is decisive, generous, practical and rich. Unlike Imogen, she enjoys fishing, hunting and outings to the race track. She is everything Imogen is not, and Imogen's self-confidence, never strong to start with, slowly wilts as she moves from vague discontent to suspicion, then to fear, then to certainty that Blanche has become her husband's mistress. The couple's one child, Gavin, is a copy of his father, and his contemptuous treatment of Imogen is a humorous foil for the more subtle cruelty meted out by Evelyn. Among those in the household, onlyGavin's friend, Tim Leeper, who has sought refuge from his own chaotic home (the scenes at the Leepers' are among the broadest and most amusing in the book), seems to have any admiration for Imogen and her quiet virtues.

The book's narrative structure is odd, because nearly the entire novel is taken up with the gradual crushing of Imogen. She is passive, inert, completely under the spell of her charismatic and adored husband even as she realizes she is losing him. A woman from another era, she has defined herself completely in the role of wife and mother, only to find she has failed at both. Her despair is nearly total, yet the flashes of wit and beauty keep the story from becoming too depressing. And yet as I kept reading, I kept asking myself, what is she going to DO? And when is she going to do it? The structure of a novel demands conflict and resolution -- a character resisting, in some fashion, the mess she has been presented with. And yet Imogen seems powerless to do anything. Until, finally, she does.

A true-treat, must read for Jane Austen fans
How does this book not have more reviews? I found it through the 2010 PBS summer reading list and it was absolutely enchanting. I couldn't put it down. As a short description, I'd say it's like a 1950's version of a Jane Austen novel - uppercrust English society, beautiful prose, absorbing conversations, and descriptions of the English countryside. The images and scenes of the book stay with you long after you've put it down. Aside from that, it's also a moving story about a troubled marriage, and the gender roles of the mid-1950's that made men and women much more unalike than need be.

an elegant book
This is an elegantly written, albeit slowly paced book.It tells the story of a fastidious wife and indifferent mother whose life revolves around pleasing and maintaining the interest of her husband, who is difficult to please.When a neighbor begins to intrude on the marriage the wife's world is changed. It is the familiar world of upper middle class England after the Second War and thepreoccupation with appearances of the leisure class.The book written well before the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker Bowles,but itmay remind some readers of the prince's preference for the less beautiful and more motherly Camilla over the glamourous Lady Diana . ... Read more

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Jane Haynes worked as an actress at the Royal Court Theatre. After she met R.D. Laing and read The Divided Self she gave up the theatre and became involved with Laing's work at Kinglsey Hall. Shetrained as a Jungian psychoanalyst. Haynes has moved away from the position of psychoanalyst to a psychotherapist who considers that it is the combination of dialogue - within an ethical therapeutic relationship - and a trained ear that are the essential ingredients of 'The Talking Cure'. The consulting room is a space where, to borrow from John Donne, 'souls negotiate'. A space in which secrets can be spoken and where they feel the first shock of light and air. The force for change that is unleashed in the consulting room is not a one-way process; the wise therapist changes too, and Jane Haynes shows how this happens. There is nothing formulaic about the dialogue she holds with her patients, and nothing doctrinaire. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Who is it that can tell me who I am.
This book has had a profoundaffect over me and is nowwinging its way around the world to my family. What a relief to meet an analyst who writes with such honesty and transparency. I have become increasingly sure that the cowardly hiding behind the accepted idea that a mask has to be present between the client/patient and therapistcan feel so rejecting to people who want a therapist skilled in what is appropriate to share and what is not. I have found the inclusion of the author's personal history has moved me in a way that many books of this nature have not. This is one of the most generous books that I have encountered.
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Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary figure?

Turn to "Dictionary of Literary Biography" for the finest literature reference material. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of reference information--this e-doc contains a biographical essay written by a noted literary expert as well as extensive primary and secondary bibliographies. ... Read more

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Writing stories that are extravagant and fanciful, fifteen-year old Angel retreats to a world of romance, escaping the drabness of provincial life. She knows she is different, that she is destined to become a feted authoress, owner of great riches and of Paradise House...

After reading The Lady Irania, publishers Brace and Gilchrist are certain the novel will be a success, in spite of - and perhaps because of - its overblown style. But they are curious as to who could have written such a book: 'Some old lady, romanticising behind lace-curtains'...'Angelica Deverell is too good a name to be true...she might be an old man. It would be an amusing variation. You are expecting to meet Mary Anne Evans and in Walks George ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

I loved this book!
I loved this book when I read it a number of years agoIt was my favorite of all of Elizabeth Taylor's novels. A film adaptation in English by french director, Francois Ozon ("8 Femmes")is coming out, but you must read the book first.I plan to read it again before I see the film.

Not Quite an Angel
I like this book because the protagonist is not really a very likeable person.But I certainly have a sympathy for her at the same time.She's an individualist and odd.Great!

A novel with a considerable cult following
The novel's heroine is described within as an exotic bloom from a cactus plant: the novel ANGEL itself might be described the same way. Its title heroine grows up spoiled and adored by her shopowning mother and mother's sister; indifferent to their ideas for her future (or indeed to just about anything else), Angel discovers her gift for fantastic fictions translates beautifully into the publishing world, where she becomes a bestselling author of contempibly popular potboilers. Angel accordingly re-invents herself as a glamorous author figure of the Elinor Glyn school, and we follow her through her successes, marriage, eventual popular neglect, and poverty.

ANGEL is a cult favorite among many British novelists, including Hilary Mantel, but is only really transcendent when it allows Angel to strive (at the beginning and the end of her career) against difficult odds. The scene, for example, where she tells off her aunt for planning to make her a ladies' maid is enormously funny and satisfying. But when Angel is rich and successful Taylor seems too invested in scoring points of of her heroine, as if she, too, feared what Angel might do if not kept in her place. ... Read more