'Excellent . . . bursting with extraordinary women' - Anita Anand 'Brilliant' - Daisy Buchanan "My hope is that this book will inspire as I have been inspired. It's a love letter to the importance of history and about how, without knowing where we come from - truthfully and entirely - we cannot know who we are." Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries is a celebration of unheard and under-heard women's history. Within these pages you'll meet nearly 1000 women whose names deserve to be better known: from the Mothers of Invention and the trailblazing women at the Bar; warrior queens and pirate commanders; the women who dedicated their lives to the natural world or to medicine; those women of courage who resisted and fought for what they believed; to the unsung heroes of stage, screen and stadium. It is global, travelling the world and spanning all periods of time. It is also an intensely moving detective story of the author's own family history as Kate Mosse pieces together the forgotten life of her great-grandmother, Lily Watson, a famous and highly-successful novelist in her day who has all but disappeared from the record . . . Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries is accessible, ambitious in its scope and fascinating in its detail. A beautifully illustrated dictionary of women, it is a love letter to family history and a personal memoir about the nature of women's struggles to be heard and their achievements acknowledged. Joyous, celebratory and engaging, it is a book for everyone who has ever wondered how history is made.

London's sewers could be called the city's forgotten underground: mostly unseen subterranean spaces that are of absolutely vital importance, the capital's sewers nonetheless rarely get the same degree of attention as the Tube. Paul Dobraszczyk here outlines the fascinating history of London's sewers from the nineteenth century onwards, using a rich variety of colour illustrations, photographs and newspaper engravings to show their development from medieval spaces to the complex, citywide network, largely constructed in the 1860s, that is still in place today. This book explores London's sewers in history, fiction and film, including how they entice intrepid explorers into their depths, from the Victorian period to the present day.

“Let us, then, set off together on a series of journeys around South Africa with an old kitbag full of books instead of maps to guide us. Let us follow meandering paths through the landscapes of literature, and celebrate how local authors, characters and readers are shaped and inspired by place …”

In this gripping travelogue, Justin Fox goes on a one-of-a-kind journey. Marrying his love for travel and writing, he sets off to explore the places of his favourite books. From the mountainous eastern Karoo of Olive Schreiner to the big-game lowveld of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, from Deneys Reitz’s wide-open Cape interior to the bushveld of Eugène Marais’s Waterberg, Fox reveals the majestic power of place. Through the savannah of Herman Charles Bosman’s Marico, the dusty plains of JM Coetzee’s Moordenaars Karoo, the forests of Dalene Matthee’s Garden Route, the subtropical hamlets of Zakes Mda’s Wild Coast, and finally the sandstone crags of Stephen Watson’s Cederberg, he brings to life the settings we’ve only seen through characters’ eyes.

Place is a moving love letter to South Africa, merging literature and landscape, and taking the reader on a breath-taking journey – into the heart of South Africa’s spectacular landscape and the inner-worlds of its most celebrated authors.

During the nineteenth century, having children was frequently viewed as women's central function and destiny - and yet the pregnant or postnatal body, as well as the birthing room, is almost entirely absent from public discourses and most written histories of the period. Confinement: The Hidden History of Maternal Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Britain corrects this omission by examining stories of pregnancy and motherhood across this period. Drawing on letters, diaries, newspapers, coroner's reports and hospital archives as well as medical advice, literature and art, Jessica Cox charts the maternal experiences of nineteenth-century women, exploring fertility, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, maternal mortality, unwanted pregnancies, infant loss, breastfeeding, and postnatal bodies and minds. From the royal family to inhabitants of the workhouse, this fascinating history reveals what motherhood was truly like for the women of nineteenth-century Britain.

Ancient Egyptian Magic is the first authoritative modern work on the occult practices that pervaded all aspects of life in ancient Egypt. Based on fascinating archaeological discoveries, it includes everything from how to write your name in hieroglyphs to the proper way to bury a king, as well as:

• Tools and training of magicians

• Interpreting dreams

• Ancient remedies for headaches, cataracts, and indigestion

• Wrapping a mummy

• Recipes for magic potions and beauty creams

• Explanations of amulets and pyramid power

• A spell to entice a lover

• A fortune-telling calendar

These subjects and many more will appeal to everyone interested in Egyptology, magic, parapsychology, and the occult; or ancient religions and mythology.

The true story of how the First Folio creators made 'Shakespeare' 2023 marks the 400-year anniversary of Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, known today simply as the First Folio. It is difficult to imagine a world without The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, and Macbeth, but these are just some of the plays which were only preserved thanks to the astounding labour of love that went into creating the first collection. Without the First Folio, Shakespeare was unlikely to acquire his towering international stature and become the legend that inspired so much of language, art, education and public institution. But who were the personalities behind the project and did Shakespeare himself play a role in its inception? Shakespeare's Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio charts, for the first time, the manufacture of the First Folio against a turbulent backdrop of seismic political events and international tensions which intersected with the lives of its creators and which left their indelible marks on this ambitious publication-project. This transporting book uncovers the friendships, bonds, social ties and professional networks which facilitated the production of Shakespeare's book, as well as the personal challenges, tragedies and dangers which threw obstacles in its way. And it reveals how Shakespeare himself, before his death, may have influenced the ways in which his own public identity would come to be enshrined in the First Folio, shaping the transmission of his legacy to future generations and determining how the world would remember him 'not of an age, but for all time'.

"Dining by Rail" is James D. Porterfield's book of history and recipes from America's golden age of railroad cuisine. Porterfield is a devotee of railroad history and a gourmet cook, and while preparing this book he sorted through 7,500 railroad recipes. Full of authentic menus and classic recipes like Lobster Newburg, deviled eggs and blanc mange, " Dining by Rail" is the book for anyone who has ever dreamed of returning to the days of glamorous travel.

John R Hume is Scotland's foremost expert on industrial heritage. John's greatest passion was - and is - industry. Over the course of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, he took over 25,000 photographs of late-industrial and post-industrial Scotland. His collection is a remarkable portrait of a way of life that has now all but vanished. His drive to act as a witness to Scotland's industrial empire, and its steady disintegration, took him to every corner of the country. John's photography produces an exhaustive and objective record. Yet it also reveals remarkable and poignant glimpses of domestic life - children playing in factory ruins, high-rises emerging on the city skylines, working men and women dwarfed by the incredible scale of an already crumbling industrial infrastructure. In A Life of Industry, author Daniel Gray tells John's story, and the story of what has been lost - and preserved.

The melodramatic and romantic cliche s that pervade popular conceptions of working-class Londoners in the 19th and 20th century are debunked in this innovative expose of proletariat London. The individual stories of muted historical figures, including an illiterate silk weaver, a grandmother in an asylum, a deserted family, an abused daughter, and a dead child, are brought to light through interpretations of the scraps they left behind-- gravestone inscriptions, photographs and certificates, the grimy contents of hidden cubbyholes, and even childhood recollections that have been passed down through the generations. The unusual contents of these stories intertwine to evoke a haunting and original picture of working-class London that adds a much-needed, though bleak facet to the city's social history.

The Gateways Club, at the heart of 1960s swinging London, was one of the few places where lesbian women could meet openly. This book tells its story, from its rise in the 1950s to its closure in 1985, as a secret world of escape--new clientele often found the club only by following likely members to its anonymous exterior on the Kings Road, Chelsea. Celebrities, straight and gay alike, from Diana Dors to Dusty Springfield, relished its bohemian atmosphere, and the club reached a wider audience when it was featured as a backdrop in the 1968 film "The Killing of Sister George." Included are interviews with 80 of its members, famous and not so famous. Their accounts--humorous, tragic, and erotic--reveal how life has changed during the half century since the Gateways began.

This rich and magisterial work traces Palestine's millennia-old heritage, uncovering cultures and societies of astounding depth and complexity that stretch back to the very beginnings of recorded history. Starting with the earliest references in Egyptian and Assyrian texts, Nur Masalha explores how Palestine and its Palestinian identity have evolved over thousands of years, from the Bronze Age to the present day. Drawing on a rich body of sources and the latest archaeological evidence, Masalha shows how Palestine's multicultural past has been distorted and mythologised by Biblical lore and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In the process, Masalha reveals that the concept of Palestine, contrary to accepted belief, is not a modern invention or one constructed in opposition to Israel, but rooted firmly in ancient past. Palestine represents the authoritative account of the country's history.

The Civil War in Missouri was a time of great confusion, violence, and destruction. Although several major battles were fought in the state between Confederate and Union forces, much of the fighting in Missouri was an ugly form of terrorism carried out by loose bands of Missouri guerrillas, by Kansas "Jayhawkers," or by marauding patrols of Union soldiers. This irregular warfare provided a training ground for people like Jesse and Frank James who, after the war, used their newly learned skills to form an outlaw band that ultimately became known all over the world.

Jesse James and the Civil War in Missouri discusses the underlying causes of the Civil War as they relate to Missouri and reveals how the war helped create both the legend and the reality of Jesse James and his gang. Written in an accessible style, this valuable little book will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in the Civil War, the legend of Jesse James, or Missouri history.

When Tony Berry received an email from a hitherto unheard-of cousin researching her family history it set him off on an unexpected journey from his home in Australia to the valleys of Wales, the mill towns of Yorkshire and the Sussex coast. Along the way - and hand in hand with his cousin now his partner - he discovered unknown relatives in New Zealand, Norway and the USA. Stories were uncovered of abject poverty, sudden workplace deaths, hardship and perseverance. Instead of the hoped-for landed gentry and honoured dignitaries they found a family tree of labourers, tidewaiters, shipwrights, preachers, weavers, cotton pickers, maids, servants and paupers. This is their story ...written from the author's new home on the other side of the world.

"An exciting and engrossing book with stories that are worth telling. This work will engage fans of Charlie O. Finley and the Oakland Athletics, along with anyone captivated by baseball history." -- Library Journal, starred review The Oakland A's of the early 1970s: Never before had an entire organization so collectively traumatized baseball's establishment with its outlandish behavior and business decisions. The high drama that played out on the field--five straight division titles and three straight championships--was exceeded only by the drama in the clubhouse and front office. Under the visionary leadership of owner Charles O. Finley, the team assembled such luminary figures as Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue, and with garish uniforms and revolutionary facial hair, knocked baseball into the modern age. Finley's insatiable need for control--he was his own general manager and dictated everything from the ballpark organist's playlist to the menu for the media lounge--made him ill-suited for the advent of free agency. Within two years, his dynasty was lost. A sprawling, brawling history of one of the game's most unforgettable teams, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic is a paean to the sport's most turbulent, magical team, during one of major league baseball's most turbulent, magical times.

Here we are again our second journey into Wednesfield's past. Our first journey produced a fantastic response from the folk of Wednesfield and indeed from other areas around the country and that is the reason for this second book and obviously my passion for Wednesfield's past. It's been really great giving talks to the kids at Wodensfield and St Patricks schools, and also at Long Knowle library and not forgetting the talks given in the Vine Inn on 6th August 2010 to celebrate the battle of Wednesfield's 1100th anniversary. Take this next journey with me into Wednesfield's past and be assured that it will bring back memories of your own journey. This 206 page book contains more than 138 photographs.