Laura Thompson's grandmother Violet was one of the great landladies. Born in a London pub, she became the first woman to be given a publican's license in her own name and, just as pubs defined her life, she seemed to embody their essence. Laura spent part of her childhood in her grandmother's Home Counties establishment, mesmerised by the landlady's gift for creating the mix of the everyday and the theatrical that defined the pub's atmosphere, making it a unique reflection of the national character. Her memories of this time are just as intoxicating- beer and ash on the carpets in the morning, the deepening rhythms of mirth at night, the magical brightness of glass behind the bara Through them she traces the story of the English pub, asking why it has occupied such a treasured position in our culture. But even Violet, as she grew older, recognised that places like hers were a dying breed, and Laura also considers the precarious future they face. Part memoir, part social history, part elegy, this book pays tribute to an extraordinary woman and the world she epitomized.

A hundred years ago, on the night of 3 October 1922, a thirty-two-year-old clerk named Percy Thompson was stabbed to death as he walked home to his suburban villa in Ilford. With him was his wife, twenty-eight-year-old Edith. His killer was Edith's lover: Frederick Bywaters, a merchant seaman aged twenty. Bywaters was hanged for murder on 9 January 1923. So too was Edith Thompson. There was no evidence, of any kind, that she was involved with the killing. What condemned Edith were the letters that she had written to her lover, which were interpreted by the law as incitement to murder. These letters are remarkable documents. Charged with the vitality of Edith's voice, they are moving, perplexing, maddening, banal, spectacularly sensual, infused with a stream-of-consciousness immediacy. And they have never been collected in print, until now. In Au Revoir Now Darlint, Laura Thompson - author of the CWA Gold Dagger-shortlisted Rex vs Edith Thompson - gathers the letters together alongside illuminating commentary to tell the story of an ordinary life and an extraordinary imagination that ultimately led to appalling tragedy.

'Wonderfully readable ... Emphasises their sheer extraordinariness and celebrates them' MAIL ON SUNDAY. The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald Mosley; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire. They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege, they became prominent as 'bright young things' in the high society of interwar London. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark - and very public - differences in their outlooks came to symbolise the political polarities of a dangerous decade. The intertwined stories of their lives - recounted in masterly fashion by Laura Thompson - hold up a revelatory mirror to upper-class English life before and after World War II.

Heiresses is a glorious book, endlessly entertaining and about much more than its stated subject. Thompson is a fabulous writer' Caroline O'Donoghue 'Witty, insightful, deliciously gossip-laden and slightly scandalous... Heiresses makes for an entertaining, occasionally sad and never less than gripping read' Anne Sebba 'Excellent... [A] wonderfully entertaining book' Sunday Times 'Exquisite and gossipy... Thompson, a gifted storyteller, obviously delighted in the writing of this book' TLS '[A] deeply empathetic study of heiresses through the ages' The Times 'Life is less sad with money', said Emerald Cunard; Barbara Hutton was the 'Poor Little Rich Girl', but which is true? Laura Thompson explores the phenomenon of the heiress from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. Take Mary Davies, a child bride at the age of twelve, and her thousand-acre dowry of today's Mayfair and Belgravia, which gave the Grosvenors their stupendous wealth. Or Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough, whose American railroad fortune helped sustain Blenheim Palace. Winnaretta Singer showcased the work of Debussy in her Parisian salon; Daisy Fellowes enjoyed parties, fashion - and other people's husbands - without shame or conscience. Alice de Janze shot one of her lovers and was suspected of murdering a second; Woolworth heiress, Barbara Hutton, married seven times. Money should mean power and opportunity, but in the hands of these women it was so often absent. Why did so many struggle to live with so much? Did the removal of need render their life meaningless? Were they riven with guilt at all they had, knowing they really should be happy? With her signature intelligence and wit, Laura Thompson tells these women's stories - glittering and fascinating but often sad and scandalous - on a gripping search for the answer.

'Another dark parable of society's vilification of women. Intelligent ... A tantalizing investigation' Kate Colquhoun.

On the night of 3 October 1922, in the quiet suburb of Ilford, Edith Thompson and her husband Percy were walking home after an evening spent at a London theatre, when a man sprang out of the darkness and stabbed Percy to death. The assailant was Frederick Bywaters, a twenty-year-old merchant seaman who had been Edith's lover. When the police learned of his relationship with Edith, she was arrested as his accomplice, despite protesting her innocence. The remarkably intense love letters Edith wrote to Freddy – some of them couched in ambiguous language – were read out at their trial for murder at the Old Bailey. They would seal her fate: Edith and Freddy were hanged for the murder of Percy Thompson in January 1923. Freddy was demonstrably guilty; but was Edith truly so?

In shattering detail and with masterful emotional insight, Laura Thompson charts the course of a liaison with thrice-fatal consequences, and investigates what the trial and execution of Edith Thompson tell us about perceptions of women in early twentieth-century Britain.

Shortlisted for Harper's Bazaar Book of the Year 2019 A Guardian, Spectator and Mail on Sunday Book of the Year 2018 'A lyrical portrait of a fast-vanishing way of life . . . Thompson is a terrific writer'New Statesman Laura Thompson's grandmother Violet was one of the great landladies. Born in a London pub, she became the first woman to be given a publican's licence in her own name and, just as pubs defined her life, she seemed in many ways to embody their essence. Laura spent part of her childhood in Violet's Home Counties establishment, mesmerised by her gift for cultivating the mix of cosiness and glamour that defined the pub's atmosphere, making it a unique reflection of the national character. Her memories of this time are just as intoxicating: beer and ash on the carpets in the morning, the deepening rhythms of mirth at night, the magical brightness of glass behind the bar... Through them Laura traces the story of the English pub, asking why it has occupied such a treasured position in our culture. But even Violet, as she grew older, recognised that places like hers were a dying breed, and Laura also considers the precarious future they face. Part memoir, part social history, part elegy, The Last Landlady pays tribute to an extraordinary woman and the world she epitomised.

Laura Thompson re-examines the truths behind one of post-war Britain's most notorious murders: the bludgeoning to death of nanny Sandra Rivett in a Belgravia basement on 7 November 1974. Lord Lucan, found guilty of the murder, was only granted a death certificate in 2016.

His wife Veronica – last surviving participant in this dark episode – died in September 2017. In this revised edition, Laura Thompson sheds new light on the volatile mental state of Veronica Lucan, and on the theories surrounding the murder, to which she adds a new, extraordinary and shocking possibility.

'The book is a gem: fresh, intelligent and assured' Sunday Times Nancy Mitford was, in the words of her sister Lady Diana Mosley, 'very, very complex'. Her biographies and novels, her journalism, and the vast body of letters to her family, friends such as Evelyn Waugh, and to the great love of her life, Gaston Palewski, all tell an intriguing story. Drawing from these, as well as conversations with Mitford's two surviving sisters and colleagues, prize-winning author Laura Thompson has fashioned a portrait of a contradictory and courageous woman. Thompson approaches her subject with wit, perspicacity and affection, while eschewing clichés about the eccentricities of the Mitford clan. Life in a Cold Climate is full of the sound of Mitfordian laughter; but tells also the often paradoxical and complex story beneath the smiling and ever elegant façade. 'A brilliant study, original, perceptive, passionate' Selina Hastings 'Well-nigh perfect' Diana Mosley, Literary Review

'Laura Thompson's outstanding biography . . . is a pretty much perfect capturing of a life' - Kate Mosse It has been 100 years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. In this biography, Laura Thompson describes the Edwardian world in which she grew up, explores the relationships she had, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the mysteries still surrounding Christie's life - including her disappearance in 1926. Agatha Christie is a mystery and writing about her is a detection job in itself. But, with access to all of Christie's letters, papers and writing notebooks, as well as interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie's detective fiction, but the truth behind her private life as well. First published in 2007 as 'Agatha Christie: An English Mystery', this is a fully updated edition with a new introduction by the author

A razor-sharp, beautifully written survey of the world of the wealthy heiress - glittering and gleaming, flawed and fascinating - from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. We fantasize about what we would do if we inherited a fortune: the house on Cheyne Walk? The Manolo Blahniks? The racehorses? But what would it be like, never to have to dream in that way? Laura Thompson explores the historical phenomenon of the heiress in four inviting categories. First, the Estate Builders, women like Elizabeth Sloan, whose father Sir Hans owned the land that is now Chelsea. The Patrons - those heiresses who tried to do something with their money - feature Winnaretta Singer, inheritor of the sewing-machine fortune, whose salon in Paris showcased work by Debussy, Faure and Ravel. Party Girls enjoy their money without shame or conscience. After the death of hostess Ronnie Greville, high-living illegitimate daughter of a Scottish brewer death, 286 bottles of Bollinger 1928 were discovered in her Mayfair home. The Rebels include Alice Silverthorne, who walked her black panther along the Promenade des Anglais and shot her lover in the stomach at the Gare du Nord. A famous heiress once said: 'Life is less sad with money'. It should be true. But is it? Laura Thompson's Heiresses takes the reader on a sparklingly enlightening search for the answer.

Nancy Mitford modelled the characters in her best-known novels on her own unconventional (and at the time of writing, notorious) family. We are introduced to the Radletts through the eyes of their cousin, Fanny ('the Bolter's girl'), on one of her frequent visits to their country estate: Uncle Matthew the blustering patriarch, owner of that bloodied entrenching tool above the fireplace, who hunts his children with bloodhounds; vague Aunt Sadie, and six children recklessly eager to grow up. The Pursuit of Love is the story of Linda, the most beautiful and wayward of the Radlett daughters, who falls first for a stuffy Tory politician, then an ardent Communist (whom she follows to the Spanish Civil War), and finally a very wicked and irresistibly charming French duke. Love in a Cold Climate, again related by Fanny, focuses on Polly Hampton, long groomed for the perfect marriage by her fearsome mother, Lady Montdore, but secretly determined to pursue her own course.

This is a new release of the original 1944 edition.

Root Systems is intended to facilitate the unfolding of roots that may currently serve as a block to the usefulness of the gift in this time and season. It is the hope of this researcher to have you make distinctions between roots, and the systems that keep them going, while looking in retrospect at a dismal society through the eyes of hope.

As you read of testimony and experiences both seen and felt, the intention is to introduce varying and sometimes narrow viewpoints, which will become cause in the matter of readers to take an introspective look at ministry within their own lives.

This book is rather intriguing because it addresses a variety of hot topics including the anointing, jealousy, heart conditions, motivations and lots of other interesting subjects. When ministering, it's important to think past the opportunity and look towards the intended purpose of your gift and God's working power.

Outside the gate represents a new realm of possibilities, and thus a ministry there requires a very different set of business tactics to develop and administrate. People doing ongoing ministry outside of an organizational structure need a separate business structure. This is an example where no one is out there showing you what to do and how you need to operate as a business structure. This book has been written to provide practical, detailed steps to follow to set up a business structure for your ministry.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!