An American tourist is forced to masquerade as queen of a small European country. She falls in love with the man of her dreams (who just happens to be that queen's prospective consort) while avoiding revolutionaries and assassins.

The author, born to American parents living in Paris, recounts his life and the influences on his writing.

Focusing on cultural areas such as exhibitions, transport, food, dress and photography, 'Changing France' shows how apparently trivial aspects of modern life provided Second Empire writers with a versatile means of thinking about deeper issues.

The French Second Empire (1852-70) was a time of exceptionally rapid social, industrial and technological change. Guidebooks and manuals were produced in large numbers to help readers negotiate new cultural phenomena, and their concerns - including image-making, diet, stress, lack of time, and the frustrations of public transport - betray contemporary political tensions and social anxieties alongside the practical advice offered. French literature also underwent fundamental changes during this period, as writers such as Baudelaire, Flaubert, Gautier, Hugo and Zola embraced 'modernity' and incorporated new technologies, fashions and inventions into their work. Focusing on cultural areas such as exhibitions, transport, food, dress and photography, 'Changing France' shows how apparently trivial aspects of modern life provided Second Empire writers with a versatile means of thinking about deeper issues. This volume brings literature and material culture together to reveal how writing itself changed as writers recognised the extraordinarily rich possibilities of expression opened up to them by the changing material world.

Francoise Sagan is best known for her first novel, "Bonjour Tristesse," which caused a scandal when she first published it at the age of eighteen in 1953. But her second novel, "A Certain Smile," less shocking and more psychologically convincing, was preferred by many critics. Like "Bonjour Tristesse," this story is set in Paris in the 1950s and told by a young student bored by her law books, restless and curious about love and sex. She is fond of her loyal boyfriend, but he, too, bores her. His worldly uncle strikes her as more exciting, appealingly risky and forbidden. Frank and spontaneous, vulnerable and cruel, thoughtless and insightful, Sagan's young narrator explores such perennial themes as unrequited love and the precarious balance of irrational emotions and self-restraint.This edition includes a new foreword by Diane Johnson, author of the best-selling novels "Le Divorce "and "L'Affaire." "The second book is now out, and so is the verdict. Sagan's novel "Un Certain Sourire," written in two months, is the new literary sensation of Paris."--"Time" "Miss Sagan is a technician of the highest order, working with exceptional economy and elegance in the tradition of Colette and Benjamin Constant."--"Atlantic" "The reader is given the feeling of having opened a young girl's intimate diary by mistake. But whoever put such a diary down?--especially when the author is as sensitive, experienced, gifted and freshly talented as Mlle. Sagan "--"San Francisco Examiner" " Sagan's] style is honest, direct, and her dialogue true. But for her sake let's hold back those invidious comparisons. Colette indeed She might turn out to be Sagan."--"Saturday Review"

Engineering Drug Delivery Systems is an essential resource on a variety of biomaterials engineering approaches for creating drug delivery systems that have market and therapeutic potential. The book comprehensively discusses recent advances in the fields of biomaterials and biomedical sciences in relation to drug delivery. Chapters provide a detailed introduction to various engineering approaches in designing drug delivery systems, delve into the engineering of body functions, cover the selection, design and evaluation of biomaterials, and discuss the engineering of colloids as drug carriers. The book's final chapters address the engineering of implantable drug delivery systems and advances in drug delivery technology. This book is an invaluable resource for drug delivery, materials scientists and bioengineers within the pharmaceutical industry.

This 1982 book offers an evaluation of one of Flaubert's major and most controversial novels. Dr Green begins by discussing the nineteenth-century debate about the relation between history and fiction, and examines Flaubert's distinctive responses to it. Then, through a detailed study of the manuscript plans for Salammbo, she shows how Flaubert worked to develop a new kind of historical novel. She shows the balance in his work between careful historical research and imaginative reconstruction; she charts how he modified, amplified, or omitted certain elements in the sources, and suggests his reasons for doing so. The result is a case history of the historical novelist's imagination at work, and one which indicates illuminating perspectives with this area of research. Instead of escaping into a vanished world of the past, Flaubert drew on contemporary French social, political, and economic issues in his recreation of a distant and decadent civilisation nearing its end.

In 1951 a two year old infant Sheila Jones was diagnosed at Birmingham Children's Hospital (BCH) with a rare condition Phenylketonuria (PKU). There was no treatment but, not accepting this, her distraught mother Mary persevered until she found help from three pioneering doctors at BCH: Dr Horst Bickel, Dr John Gerrard and Dr Evelyn Hickmans. In the hospital laboratory they worked tirelessly to prepare a special formula and Sheila was the first person in the world to receive dietary treatment for PKU. Until now, little has been known about the life of Sheila, and her family in Birmingham, and the hardships and sacrifices they endured. It is a remarkable story of a brave little girl, her brothers, and her courageous and tenacious mother. Sheila's contribution is immense; it led to the introduction of newborn screening and worldwide treatment for PKU. It is a great sadness that Sheila herself was unable to benefit long term but her legacy is a triumph for all those with PKU. This is Sheila's story until her death in Birmingham in 1999 and will be important to people with PKU, their families, health professionals and readers interested in the history of medicine.

A captivating history of gloves both real and mythical, practical and high fashion. This beautifully illustrated history of gloves draws on examples from across the world to explore their cultural significance. From hand-knitted mittens to exquisitely embroidered confections, and from the three-fingered gloves of medieval shepherds to Bluetooth-enabled examples that function like a mobile phone, gloves' extraordinary variety is a tribute to human ingenuity. So, too, is the remarkable diversity of their-often contradictory-cultural associations. They have been linked to honor, identity, and status, but also to decadence and deceit. In this book, Anne Green discusses gloves both as material objects with their own fascinating history and as fictional creations in folktales, literature, films, etiquette manuals, paintings, and advertisements. Looking to the runway, Green even explores their recent resurgence as objects of high fashion.