'As he turned ... he had the extraordinary impression of a man in full armour rearing up in front of him ... It was the last thing he saw, before he hurtled downwards to a certain death' An untimely death and the reappearance of a ghost lead television reporter Jemima Shore into a mysterious case of sex, violence and the supernatural. When the butler plummets from the battlements of Lackland Court, it becomes clear that the ghost of the legendary Civil War poet and soldier, Decimus Meredith, is not the only suspect. Jemima must look to history and delve deep into the ancient hall's past to solve yet another baffling mystery.

From the outset, Caroline Lamb had a rebellious nature. From childhood she grew increasingly troublesome, experimenting with sedatives like laudanum, and she had a special governess to control her. She also had a merciless wit and talent for mimicry. She spoke French and German fluently, knew Greek and Latin, and sketched impressive portraits. As the niece of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, she was already well connected, and her courtly skills resulted in her marriage to the Hon. William Lamb (later Lord Melbourne) at the age on nineteen. For a few years they enjoyed a happy marriage, despite Lamb's siblings and mother-in-law detesting her and referring to her as 'the little beast'. In 1812 Caroline embarked on a well-publicised affair with the poet Lord Byron - he was 24, she 26. Her phrase 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' became his lasting epitaph. When he broke things off, Caroline made increasingly public attempts to reunite. Her obsession came to define much of her later life, as well as influencing her own writing - most notably the Gothic novel Glenarvon - and Byron's. Antonia Fraser's vividly compelling biography animates the life of 'a free spirit' who was far more than mad, bad and dangerous to know.

'Utterly gripping and consistently witty' Damian Thompson, Literary Review 'An absolutely splendid book' A. N. Wilson, The Spectator The story of Catholic Emancipation begins with the violent Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, fuelled by the reduction in Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics harking back to the sixteenth century. Some fifty years later, the passing of the Emancipation Bill was hailed as a 'bloodless revolution'. Had the Irish Catholics been a 'millstone', as described by an English aristocrat, or were they the prime movers? While the English Catholic aristocracy and the Irish peasants and merchants approached the Catholic Question in very different ways, they manifestly shared the same objective. Antonia Fraser brings colour and humour to the vivid drama with its huge cast of characters: George III, who opposed Emancipation on the basis of the Coronation Oath; his son, the indulgent Prince of Wales, who was enamoured with the Catholic Maria Fitzherbert before the voluptuous Lady Conyngham; Wellington and the 'born Tory' Peel vying for leadership; 'roaring' Lord Winchilsea; the heroic Daniel O'Connell. Expertly written and deftly argued, The King and Catholics is also a distant mirror of our times, reflecting the political issues arising from religious intolerance.

'Ground-breaking ... One of the greatest international bestsellers of the post-war period' Andrew Roberts, Daily Telegraph 'Reads like an engrossing novel' Sunday Times An infant queen. A teenage widow. Beautiful, flamboyant Mary Queen of Scots had a formidable intellect but her political sense - formed at the absolute court of France - plunged her country into a maelstrom of intrigue, marriage and murder. Upon fleeing to England she was held captive by her cousin Elizabeth I. In this classic biography, reissued for the fiftieth anniversary of its publication, acclaimed historian Antonia Fraser relates the enthralling story of Mary's life and untimely end.

An atmospheric and gripping mystery from Lady Antonia Fraser's Jemima Shore series. How well do we ever know our friends? When Jemima Shore offers to flat-sit for her friend Chloe, the last thing she is expecting is threatening anonymous phone calls on her very first night. A vicious assault by Chloe's ex-lover the next morning forces Jemima to accept that she knows very little about her friend's life. Fuming, she decides to confront her. But then she realises that Chloe never reached her destination ... and Jemima is not the only person trying to get in touch with her. It seems she was playing a dangerous game - and Jemima has been left with the aftermath. The only trouble is, Chloe was playing with some of the most influential people in London - people who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets hidden.

'We don't want to hurt her. We must remember that. All of us. She is after all innocent ... Well, isn't she?' As preparations for the royal wedding advance, a secret organisation is formulating plans that will have dangerous consequences. They need a gesture that will call attention to the rights and wrongs of those who have no voice of their own. And what better way than to target the royal bride? Meanwhile, Jemima Shore is grappling with the royal wedding in her own way - as a commentator. So she happens to be on hand when things go badly wrong...

An atmospheric and gripping mystery from Lady Antonia Fraser's Jemima Shore series. 'Was that what you thought - that you would come back, come back here to beautiful Lark, and get away with it, did you expect that? I can hardly believe it, even of you...' A series of murders have shocked the sleepy, rural village of Lark. The deaths all coincide with the reappearance of actress Christabel Herriot - it is clear that someone has decided her return is not to be tolerated. Amidst the gossip surrounding her reckless affair, Christabel decides to resume her theatrical career, joining a company performing at the Larminster Festival. Jemima Shore has been asked to present a programme on the Festival, so when it becomes clear that Christabel's life is in serious danger, Jemima is on the case again.

From treachery in the Caribbean to mischief in the Mediterranean, from murderous drama to sleek black comedy, from a baffling number of suspects to a single confrontation with a maniacal rapist, here is a tantalising and varied excursion round motives and methods in the realm of crime - a collection of wittily told and deftly turned stories, with a twist.

Summoned by the wayward Lady Imogen Swain, Jemima is entrusted with the diaries she kept in 1964, diaries which contain an account of her passionate affair with Burgo Smyth MP; now Foreign Secretary but then a rising young Conservative politician. With the increasingly eccentric Lady Imogen threatening to reveal details about the affair, and of the subsequent disappearance of a young journalist, Jemima's meeting with Lady Imogen is the first step in a sinister series of events which leads to political scandal, blackmail and murder.

Christian Dior (1905-1957) rocketed to fame with his first collection in 1947 when the "New Look" took the world by storm. This charming and modest autobiography gives a fascinating and detailed insight into the workings of a great fashion house, while revealing the private man behind the high-profile establishment. It is also a unique portrait of classic Paris haute couture of the 1950s and offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes. Dior details his childhood in Granville, the family and friends closest to him, his most difficult years and sudden success, as well as his sources of inspiration and creative processes.

Following a youth of poverty and bitter exile after his father's execution, the ousted king first challenged, then made his magnificent escape from, Cromwell's troops before he was eventually restored to his throne in triumph in 1660. Spanning his life both before and after the Restoration, Antonia Fraser's lively and fascinating biography captures all the vitality of the man and the expansiveness of the age.

Still a controversial figure, Marie Antoinette's dramatic life-story continues to arouse mixed emotions. To many people, she is still "la reine mechante", whose extravagance and frivolity helped to bring down the French monarchy; her indifference to popular suffering epitomised by the (apocryphal) words: "let them eat cake". Others are equally passionate in her defence: to them, she is a victim of misogyny. In this biography Antonia Fraser examines her influence over the king, Louis XVI, the accusations and sexual slurs made against her, her patronage of the arts which enhanced French cultural life, her imprisonment, the death threats made against her, rumours of lesbian affairs, her trial (during which her young son was forced to testify to sexual abuse by his mother) and her eventual execution by guillotine in 1793.

'Before biography was fashionable, Antonia Fraser made the past popular' Guardian 'As a pure storyteller, Antonia Fraser has few equals' Sunday Times CAROLINE NORTON, a nineteenth-century heroine who wanted justice for women. Poet, pamphleteer and artist's muse, Caroline Norton dazzled 19-century society with her vivacity and intelligence. In 1836 Caroline underwent a dramatic trial when her jealous husband sued the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, for adultery. Provisions which are now taken for granted - such as the right of a mother to have access to her children - owe much to Caroline, who was determined to secure justice for women at all levels of society. Award-winning historian Antonia Fraser brilliantly portrays a woman who refused to be curbed by the personal and political constraints of her time.

The story of Catholic Emancipation begins with the violent Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, fuelled by the reduction in Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics harking back to the sixteenth century. Some fifty years later, the passing of the Emancipation Bill was hailed as a 'bloodless revolution'. Had the Irish Catholics been a 'millstone', as described by an English aristocrat, or were they the prime movers? While the English Catholic aristocracy and the Irish peasants and merchants approached the Catholic Question in very different ways, they manifestly shared the same objective. Antonia Fraser brings colour and humour to the vivid drama with its huge cast of characters: George III, who opposed Emancipation on the basis of the Coronation Oath; his son, the indulgent Prince of Wales, who was enamoured with the Catholic Maria Fitzherbert before the voluptuous Lady Conyngham; Wellington and the 'born Tory' Peel vying for leadership; 'roaring' Lord Winchilsea; the heroic Daniel O'Connell. Expertly written and deftly argued, THE KING AND THE CATHOLICS is also a distant mirror of our times, reflecting the political issues arising from religious intolerance.

'The screams came again: by now they sounded quite blood-curdling to the girl alone in the small room - or was it that they were getting nearer?' From murders and ghostly visitors to devious plots and family feuds, Antonia Fraser's first collection of short stories is a feast of mingled delight and suspense. There are five Jemima Shore stories including the first ever Jemima Shore mystery in which the fifteen-year-old Jemima is confronted by blood-curdling screams and miraculous moving statues in the dead of night. Jemima is at her sparkling best as she solves the case of the Parr children in a remote corner of the Scottish Highlands and elegantly deals with a missing bride on a romantic Venetian honeymoon.

In May 1978 Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser visited Israel at the time of the 30th Anniversary of Independence. It was three years after they first lived together; neither had set foot in Israel before. Based in Jerusalem, they toured many of the country's historic sites: from Bethlehem to the fortress of Masada, encountering future Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek, Jackie Kennedy and a long-lost cousin of Harold's on a kibbutz. It was a trip during which Pinter's feelings about his heritage emerged for the first time. As he said himself: 'For the first time I feel Jewish'. This diary was kept daily by Antonia Fraser: the vivid narrative and descriptions (Antonia swimming in the Dead Sea while Harold had a beer) are leavened with humour, occasionally wry where Harold's quirks were concerned, and always tender. Above all, it is a unique picture of a time and place - and a touching insight into fifteen days in the lives of two writers, one Jewish, one Catholic, one a playwright and one a biographer, who were also a devoted couple.

Antonia Fraser's bestselling biography of Henry VIII's six wives; a subject of enduring fascination. The six wives of Henry VIII - Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr - have become defined in a popular sense not so much by their lives as by the way these lives ended. But, as Antonia Fraser conclusively proves, they were rich and feisty characters. They may have been victims of Henry's obsession with a male heir, but they were not willing victims. On the contrary, they displayed considerable strength and intelligence at a time when their sex supposedly possessed little of either.

The childhood and early life memoir of Antonia Fraser, one of our finest narrative historians. Antonia Fraser's magical memoir describes growing up in the 1930s and '40s, but its real concern is with her growing love of history. A fascination that began with reading Our Island Story and her evacuation to an Elizabethan manor house at the beginning of the Second World War soon developed into an enduring passion, becoming, in her own words, 'an essential part of the enjoyment of life'. My History follows Antonia's relationship with her family: she was the eldest of eight children. Her parents Frank and Elizabeth Pakenham, later Lord and Lady Longford, were both Labour politicians. Then there are her adventures as a self-made debutante before Oxford University and a fortunate coincidence that leads to her working in publishing. It closes with the publication of her first major historical work, Mary Queen of Scots - a book that became a worldwide bestseller. Told with inimitable humour and style, this is an unforgettable account of one person's journey towards becoming a writer - and a historian.

Mistresses and wives, mothers and daughters - Antonia Fraser brilliantly explores the relationships which existed between The Sun King and the women in his life. This includes not only Louis XIV's mistresses, principally Louise de La Valliere, Athenais de Montespan, and the puritanical Madame de Maintenon, but also the wider story of his relationships with women in general, including his mother Anne of Austria, his two sisters-in-law who were Duchesses d'Orleans in succession, Henriette-Anne and Liselotte, his wayward illegitimate daughters, and lastly Adelaide, the beloved child-wife of his grandson.

An atmospheric and gripping mystery set in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland from Lady Antonia Fraser's Jemima Shore series. 'I warned you, Jemima Shore, things up here are seldom all they seem . . .' The body of a young man has been found floating in a pool on a remote island in the Scottish Highlands. It just happens to be the island that TV reporter Jemima Shore has rented for a holiday - a holiday that is rapidly falling apart. Confronted with a foreboding stone house, a bitter family feud and cryptic warnings from locals Jemima begins to regret her choice. It is only when another body is found tangled in weeds in the river she begins to realize she has become caught up in something very dark indeed. As she tries to fight her attraction to a suspect, Jemima struggles to work out just who she can trust. In this lonely spot it seems that nobody is quite as they first appear...

France’s beleaguered queen, Marie Antoinette, wrongly accused of uttering the infamous “Let them eat cake,” was the subject of ridicule and curiosity even before her death; she has since been the object of debate and speculation and the fascination so often accorded tragic figures in history. Married in mere girlhood, this essentially lighthearted, privileged, but otherwise unremarkable child was thrust into an unparalleled time and place, and was commanded by circumstance to play a significant role in history. Antonia Fraser’s lavish and engaging portrait of Marie Antoinette, one of the most recognizable women in European history, excites compassion and regard for all aspects of her subject, immersing the reader not only in the coming-of-age of a graceful woman, but also in the unraveling of an era.

Antonia Fraser's bestselling account of the lives of women in seventeenth-century England. Just how weak were the women of the Civil War era? What could they expect beyond marriage and childbirth in an age where infant and maternal mortality was frequent and contraception unknown? Did anyone marry for love? Could a woman divorce? What rights had the unmarried? What expectations the widows? An expert on the period, Antonia Fraser brings to life the many and various women she has encountered in her considerable research: governesses, milkmaids, fishwives, nuns, defenders of castles, courtesans, countesses, witches and widows.

In Cromwell, award-winning biographer Antonia Fraser tells of one of England's most celebrated and controversial figures, often misunderstood and demonized as a puritanical zealot. Oliver Cromwell rose from humble beginnings to spearhead the rebellion against King, Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649, and led his soldiers into the last battle against the Royalists and King Charles II at Worcester, ending the civil war in 1651. Fraser shows how England's prestige and prosperity grew under Cromwell, reversing the decline it had suffered since Queen Elizabeth I's death.

Author of Marie Antoinette
She was the quintessential queen: statuesque, regal, dazzlingly beautiful. Her royal birth gave her claim to the thrones of two nations; her marriage to the young French dauphin promised to place a third glorious crown on her noble head.
Instead, Mary Stuart became the victim of her own impulsive heart, scandalizing her world with a foolish passion that would lead to abduction, rape and even murder. Betrayed by those she most trusted, she would be lured into a deadly game of power, only to lose to her envious and unforgiving cousin, Elizabeth I.
Here is her story, a queen who lost a throne for love, a monarch pampered and adored even as she was led to her beheading, the unforgettable woman who became a legend for all time.