The fascinating history of poetry anthologies and their influence on British society and culture over the last four centuries. For hundreds of years, anthologies have shaped the way we encounter literature. Eighteenth-century children and young women were introduced to the 'safe' bits of Shakespeare or Milton through censored collections; Victorian working-class men and women enrolled at adult learning institutions to be taught from The Golden Treasury; First World War soldiers nursed copies of The Oxford Book of English Verse in the trenches; pop-loving teenagers growing up in the 1960s got their first taste of the counterculture from the bestselling The Mersey Sound. But anthologies aren't just part of literary history. Over the centuries, they have influenced the course of British social change, redrawing the map of 'high' and 'low' culture, generating conversations around politics, morality, class, gender and belief. The Treasuries, by the literary scholar and journalist Clare Bucknell, reveals the extraordinary amount we can learn about our history from the anthologies that brought readers together and changed the way they thought.

THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2022 Eleven years when Britain had no king. In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution. On a raw January afternoon, the Stuart king, Charles I, was executed for treason. Within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the 'useless and dangerous' House of Lords discarded. The people, it was announced, were now the sovereign force in the land. What this meant, and where it would lead, no one knew. The Restless Republic is the story of the extraordinary decade that followed. It takes as its guides the people who lived through those years. Among them is Anna Trapnel, the daughter of a Deptford shipwright whose visions transfixed the nation. John Bradshaw, the Cheshire lawyer who found himself trying the King. Marchamont Nedham, the irrepressible newspaper man and puppet master of propaganda. Gerrard Winstanley, who strove for a Utopia of common ownership where no one went hungry. William Petty, the precocious scientist whose mapping of Ireland prefaced the dispossession of tens of thousands. And the indomitable Countess of Derby who defended to the last the final Royalist stronghold on the Isle of Man. The Restless Republic ranges from London to Leith, Cornwall to Connacht, from the corridors of power to the common fields and hillsides. Gathering her cast of trembling visionaries and banished royalists, dextrous mandarins and bewildered bystanders, Anna Keay brings to vivid life the most extraordinary and experimental decade in Britain's history. It is the story of how these tempestuous years set the British Isles on a new course, and of what happened when a conservative people tried revolution.

From the presenter of BBC One's Scotland from the Sky You scramble up over the dunes of an isolated beach. You climb to the summit of a lonely hill. You pick your way through the eerie hush of a forest. And then you find them. The traces of the past. Perhaps they are marked by a tiny symbol on your map, perhaps not. There are no plaques to explain their fading presence before you, nothing to account for what they once were - who made them, lived in them or abandoned them. Now they are merged with the landscape. They are being reclaimed by nature. They are wild history. In this book acclaimed author and presenter James Crawford introduces many such places all over the country, from the ruins of prehistoric forts and ancient, arcane burial sites, to abandoned bothies and boathouses, and the derelict traces of old, faded industry.

His name and image are everywhere - from Bank of Scotland fivers to the bizarre monument in Edinburgh's city centre. Scott-land presumes that the reader will have only a hazy awareness of Sir Walter Scott, and, although Stuart Kelly will offer insights into Scott's works and biography, this is emphatically not a conventional literary biography, nor is it a critical study. Partly a surreptitious autobiography - Stuart Kelly was born near Abbotsford - his examination of Scott's legacy and character come to change his own thoughts on writing, reviewing, being Scottish, and being human.

For fans of "The Tulip" and "Orchid Fever," a captivating account of big business, adventure and family intrigue in the horticultural world.
For over a century and across five generations, one Scottish family pioneered the introduction of hundreds of new plants into gardens, conservatories and houses and became the foremost European cultivators and hybridizers of their day. The story begins in 1768 when a Scotsman named John Veitch went to England to find his fortune, starting out as a gardener for the aristocracy. Realizing that horticultural mania had begun to spread throughout the population, Veitch and his wife opened a nursery and began to send the first commercial plant collectors to North and South America, Australia, India, Japan, China and the South Seas. These plant collectors were among the first people allowed into the countries of the Far East and the tales of their travels, many of them perilous and some fatal, are wonderful adventure stories. Combining an historian's eye for detail with a flair for storytelling, the author charts the fortunes of one family and through them tells the fascinating story of the modern garden.

London, 1716. Revenge is a dish best served ice-cold...The city is caught in the vice-like grip of a savage winter. Even the Thames has frozen over. But for Jonas Flynt - thief, gambler, killer - the chilling elements are the least of his worries... Justice Geoffrey Dumont has been found dead at the base of St Paul's cathedral, and a young male sex-worker, Sam Yates, has been taken into custody for the murder. Yates denies all charges, claiming he had received a message to meet the judge at the exact time of death. The young man is a friend of courtesan Belle St Clair, and she asks Flynt to investigate. As Sam endures the horrors of Newgate prison, they must do everything in their power to uncover the truth and save an innocent life, before the bodies begin to pile up. But time is running out. And the gallows are beckoning... A totally enrapturing portrayal of eighteenth-century London, and a rapier-like crime thriller, perfect for fans of Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Antonia Hodgson and Ambrose Parry.

An engaging, richly illustrated account of parish churches and churchgoers in England, from the Anglo-Saxons to the mid-sixteenth century Parish churches were at the heart of English religious and social life in the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century. In this comprehensive study, Nicholas Orme shows how they came into existence, who staffed them, and how their buildings were used. He explains who went to church, who did not attend, how people behaved there, and how they-not merely the clergy-affected how worship was staged. The book provides an accessible account of what happened in the daily and weekly services, and how churches marked the seasons of Christmas, Lent, Easter, and summer. It describes how they celebrated the great events of life: birth, coming of age, and marriage, and gave comfort in sickness and death. A final chapter covers the English Reformation in the sixteenth century and shows how, alongside its changes, much that went on in parish churches remained as before.

Revolution, the fourth volume of Peter Ackroyd's enthralling History of England begins in 1688 with a revolution and ends in 1815 with a famous victory.

In it, Ackroyd takes readers from William of Orange's accession following the Glorious Revolution to the Regency, when the flamboyant Prince of Wales ruled in the stead of his mad father, George III, and England was - again - at war with France, a war that would end with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

Late Stuart and Georgian England marked the creation of the great pillars of the English state. The Bank of England was founded, as was the stock exchange, the Church of England was fully established as the guardian of the spiritual life of the nation and parliament became the sovereign body of the nation with responsibilities and duties far beyond those of the monarch. It was a revolutionary era in English letters, too, a time in which newspapers first flourished and the English novel was born. It was an era in which coffee houses and playhouses boomed, gin flowed freely and in which shops, as we know them today, began to proliferate in our towns and villages. But it was also a time of extraordinary and unprecedented technological innovation, which saw England utterly and irrevocably transformed from a country of blue skies and farmland to one of soot and steel and coal.

***THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER*** In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalised racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial 'gift' from the railways to the rule of law was designed in Britain's interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India s deindustrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain's stained Indian legacy.

The summer of 2022 saw the celebration of the seventieth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, the first time in British history that a monarch has reached this remarkable milestone. As the event was the first of its kind to be televised, images from the ceremony inside Westminster Abbey are instantly recognisable. Far less familiar are the scenes in the streets outside, where huge crowds assembled to see a procession of state coaches and historic regiments marching past public buildings festooned with patriotic banners and colourful grandstands erected outside many famous landmarks. Using a private collection of more than 200 rare images of London's West End, Protect and Keep looks back to the day that the Queen pledged herself to her country. It provides a unique and precious record of an historic occasion: the day of the Coronation as it was seen by ordinary members of the public.

Discover all the foul facts about the history of Old Blighty with history's most horrible headlines: English edition. The master of making history fun, Terry Deary, turns his attention to England. From which monk tried to pinch the devil's nose with a pair of tongs and why some people in the Middle Ages ate dove droppings to which English King was accused of being a werewolf. It's all in Horrible Histories: England: fully illustrated throughout and packed with hair-raising stories - with all the horribly hilarious bits included with a fresh take on the classic Horrible Histories style, perfect for fans old and new the perfect series for anyone looking for a fun and informative read Horrible Histories has been entertaining children and families for generations with books, TV, stage show, magazines, games and 2019's brilliantly funny Horrible Histories: the Movie - Rotten Romans. Get your history right here and collect the whole horrible lot. Read all about it!

"Amazing & Extraordinary Facts about Kings and Queens" unearths a wealth of fascinating truths about British monarchs from pre-Roman times to the present day. Discover revealing stories about the lives and personalities of each monarch and how they have shaped history. Tales of wickedness, greed, adultery and madness make this guide to Britain's kings and queens utterly compelling. "The Amazing and Extraordinary Facts series" presents interesting, surprising and little-known facts and stories about a wide range of topics which are guaranteed to inform, absorb and entertain in equal measure. Brief, accessible and entertaining pieces on a wide variety of subjects make them the perfect books to dip in to.

This collection of books encompasses Scottish identity and cultural heritage, historical geography, health and social issues, industrial, economic, religious and political history. Originally published between 1935 and 1990, many of these titles were written at the height of discussions concerning the viability of an independent Scotland, an issue that has renewed relevance today. They include some of the notable volumes from the Routledge The Voice of Scotland series, as well as other books by leading authors. The empirical content of many of the books reissued here ensures they retain their relevance in informing studies of trends since the time they were first completed and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the ongoing debate about Scotland's role within the UK and Europe and the shape of her political future.

A gripping true story of wartime espionage. Dundee, 1937. When housewife Mary Curran became suspicious of hairdresser Jessie Jordan's frequent trips to Nazi Germany, she had no idea that she was about to be drawn into an international web of espionage. Thanks to a tip off from Mary, MI5 and the FBI launched major spy hunts on both sides of the Atlantic. This is the true story of a decade-long series of Nazi espionage plots in Britain, Europe and the United States. It shows how a Nazi spy's letter, posted in New York and intercepted in Scotland, broke spy rings across Europe and North America. And it reveals, for the first time, how that letter marked the genesis of an intelligence and security alliance that today includes the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 'Fascinating, gripping and expertly researched... an extraordinary true tale of espionage told with all the drama and panache of a spy thriller' - Michael Smith, bestselling author of The Secrets of Station X

Experience a new history of Scotland told through its places. Writers Kathleen Jamie, Alexander McCall Smith, Alistair Moffat, James Robertson and James Crawford pick twenty-five buildings to tell the story of the nation. Travelling across the country, from abandoned islands and lonely glens to the heart of our modern cities, these five authors seek out the diverse narrative of the Scottish people. Follow Kathleen Jamie as she searches for the traces of our first family hearths in the Cairngorms and makes a midsummer journey to Shetland to meet the unlikely new inhabitants of an Iron Age broch. Tour the wondrous and macabre Surgeons' Hall with Alexander McCall Smith, or walk with him over sacred ground to Iona's ancient Abbey. Join Alistair Moffat as he discovers a lost whisky village in the wilds of Strathconon, and climbs up through the vertiginous layers of history in Edinburgh Castle. Accompany James Robertson as he goes from the standing stones of Callanish to the humble cottage of Hugh MacDiarmid - via the engineering colossus of the Forth Rail Bridge. And journey with James Crawford from a packed crowd in Hampden Park, to an off-the-grid eco-bothy on the Isle of Eigg. Who Built Scotland is a landmark exploration of Scotland's social, political and cultural histories. Moving from Neolithic families, exiled hermits and ambitious royal dynasties to highland shieling girls, peasant poets, Enlightenment philosophers and iconoclastic artists, it places our people, our ideas and our passions at the heart of our architecture and archaeology. This is the remarkable story how we have shaped our buildings and how our buildings, in turn, have shaped us.

Our ancestors developed a uniquely nature-focused society, centred on esteemed poets, seers, monks, healers and wise women who were deeply connected to the land. They used this connection to the cycles of the natural world - from which we are increasingly dissociated - as an animating force in their lives. In this illuminating new book, Manchan Magan sets out on a journey, through bogs, across rivers and over mountains, to trace these ancestor's footsteps. He uncovers the ancient myths that have shaped our national identity and are embedded in the strata of land that have endured through millennia - from ice ages through to famines and floods. Here, the River Shannon is a goddess, and trees and their life-sustaining root systems are hallowed. See the world in a new light in this magical exploration into the life-sustaining wisdom of what lies beneath us. 'We could do with a lot more characters like [Manchan] dotted about this world.' Irish Independent 'Manchan creates a gorgeous tapestry that lingers in the mind's eye.' Kerri Ni Dochartaigh 'Manchan['s] ... got some theories about the roots of the Irish language that are going to blow your head off ... an incredible storyteller.' Blindboy Boatclub Manchan's passion for Ireland's ecological and poetic heritage is more urgently relevant than ever.' Darach O Seaghdha

In 2017, the Government's attempt to trigger Article 50 and so leave the European Union resulted in a judgement by the Supreme Court, which stated that the Government was unentitled to do so without the consent of Parliament, directly citing the Bill of Rights in its judgement. Ironically, the Bill of Rights, enacted in 1689 to address abuses by the Crown, was successfully invoked in the twenty-first century to curb a perceived abuse by Government, acting in the name of the Crown. Passed shortly after the Glorious Revolution, the Bill sets out the balance of power between Parliament and the Crown, prohibiting the sovereign from levying taxes, recruiting troops or suspending laws without Parliamentary consent. Establishing Parliament as the ultimate source of power in the land and enshrining basic civil rights first set out in Magna Carta but subsequently abridged, the Bill document can justly claim to serve as the origin of Britain's democracy. Published here with an introduction by Jonathan Sumption providing the historical context of the document and its influence over the centuries - particularly on the United States Bill of Rights - this edition shows how a number of the original clauses find renewed relevance in contemporary events.

In the age of empire, Victorians and Romantics over the long 19th century faced issues of governance that no other society had faced on such a massive level, causing socio-political questions that had to be addressed based on sheer necessity but little governmental experience. In an age in which there was a decade referred to as "the Hungry Forties," and in which the Great Famine in Ireland occurs as well, there are high rates of poverty across the whole century in Britain and its colonies. At the same time that hunger and famine were intractable issues, irresolvable across nineteenth-century Britain, socio-political entities had little stomach for solving the problem and few technocrats had economic answers based on real world experience. This four-volume collection of primary sources examine hunger and famine in Britain and its empire across the long nineteenth century.

A history of Reading's iconic gaol: architectural landmark, cultural emblem and symbol for a community determined to cherish the town's heritage. Layers of history and art are carefully peeled back as Peter Stoneley reveals its past as architectural showcase for Sir George Gilbert Scott's decorative (and expensive!) style, location for experiments in prison reform, training ground for the leaders of the Irish Independence movement and, of course, the inspiration for Oscar Wilde's famous Ballad of Reading Gaol. Bringing the narrative right up to the present day with the discussions over its future use, the impact of the ArtAngel exhibition and Banksy's graffiti, this book is a timely platform for the building to tell us its story.