October 31st. It's been called everything from "Sowein," "Samhain," and "Mischief Eve" to "Devil's Night" and the "Season of the Witch." Its most common moniker of course is "Halloween." It is that mysterious night of the year when the veil between reality and that of the underworld grows so thin as to allow spirits of the dead to commune with the living. This compendium is a tribute to the entire month. Hallow Evil is a darkly-delightful panoply of short fiction and poetry authored by master of horror, Chris Cook. Herein are thirty-one writings. This collection of peculiar poems, twisted tales and oft-times humorous pieces are designed to chill your bones on cool, fall evenings. They can be read throughout the month of October, one piece per calendar day. Or you may devour the book in one sitting. However you digest these entrails, make Hallow Evil a new tradition in your home. When October's winds whistle through skeletal trees, dust off the hideous cover and crack open the spine like the creaky lid of a coffin in decay. Read by the flicker of a Jack-O-Lantern. Settle in for a long night of mystery and the macabre

Holiday Cheer from the Antebellum South Columbia, South Carolina. December 24, 1862. It is the week of the "Christmas Raid of Kentucky" and the height of the war among the states. The chill in the air carries hickory-scented plumes of smoke upward from colonial chimneys. Within Antebellum homes, Confederate soldiers cuddle-up with southern belles beneath mistletoe and share mint jelly, ambrosia, and chestnuts from the hearth. Ebenezer Scrooge, wealthy plantation owner, will have none of it. That is, until the miserly curmudgeon is haunted by the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future and forced to review his wasted life of misanthropy. Never straying in message from Charles Dickens' novella, Chris Cook has set the Christmas classic in the American Civil War, a time of strife and struggle not unlike the pain and poverty that belied 1830's Dickensian London. Also included is a delightful companion piece to the play. CONFEDERATE BILL, Memoir of a Civil War Veteran is the real-life autobiography by Cook's great, great grandfather, William E. Trahern. Published for the first time ever, it is an important piece of history, documenting the adventures and vagaries of a young rebel soldier. Both stories are southern-fried treats "Yule " love em

Fifteen year old Gabriel's life is about to change forever. He discovers everything surrounding his life has been a lie. A Journey begins that lets Gabriel discover who he really is and what his destiny is. He learns he has special abilities that he must use to defeat an evil group that has been looking for him ever since his birth. Along the way he discovers friendship, family, and love. Will he learn enough in time to stop the evil?

A delightfully creepy collection of 25 plays of horror and the supernatural, Theatre Macabre provides a bevy of produceable one-acts sure to put a shiver down the spines of your most discriminating audiences. This anthology of plays is Christopher Cook's best and most frightening dramas suitable for professional, community, college and experimental theatre companies. It is perfect for the late-night play-going crowds.

Cook's plays abound with tales of vampires, ghosts, werewolves, zombies, extraterrestrials, psychopaths, and even killer bees. Some of the plays in this book have been fully produced, some have received staged readings, a few are brand new and all of them are fast-paced, intriguing little gems written in the tradition of the classic Twilight Zone and Hitchcock TV series, respectively.

If you're looking for something to produce at Halloween, a one-act play festival, or an unusual addition to a season of full-length offerings, Theatre Macabre will prove an invaluable resource to add to your library of play collections. While not all the plays included are necessarily appropriate for school-aged actors to read or perform, there are a handful of scripts in the publication written specifically with middle and high school students in mind.

Theatre Macabre is a treasure trove of material for directors, producers, actors, teachers, and university professors alike. It is sure to become one of Christopher Cook's lasting legacies to the theatre world as well as the growing cult of horror enthusiasts worldwide

Order your copy of Theatre Macabre today and begin looking forward to putting on your own evening of chilling terrors and nightmarish thrillers

This second volume ranges in time from the proclamation of the German Empire in 1870 to the end of the Second World War and provides a guide to the surviving private papers of over 1000 statesmen, politicians and diplomats who played a part in the shaping of modern Europe.;There is material on such major themes as the pre-1914 rivalries of the Great Powers, the Versailles Settlement and the coming of the Second World War.;The geographical coverage ranges from Scandinavia to Italy and from Tsarist Russia to Republican Spain. Information is included on archives from institutions as diverse as the League of Nations in Geneva and the Hoover Institution in California.;Chris Cook has been co-author of all six volumes of the series and Bob Moore is author of "Refugees from Nazi Germany in the Netherlands, 1933-40".

From 1970 a major project to uncover source material for students of contemporary British history and politics was undertaken at the British Library of Political and Economic Science. Fiananced by the Social Science Research Council, and under the direction of Dr Chris Cook, this project has attempted a massive and systematic operation to locate, and then to make readily available, those archives that provide the indispensable source material for the contemporary historian. This volume (together with the fourth volume in the series) presents the finding of this survey for the surviving political papers of every Member of Parliament and Government Minister between 1900 and 1951. Together, these two volumes, with over 3800 entries, will provide not only an invaluable guide for both the historian and political scientist but also a unique biographical work of reference.

In this text, historians and political scientists present a survey of the role and influence of by-elections in British politics since 1918.

The second book published in this series carries on from where The Moors Murderers' left off and continues the horrific story of the crimes perpetrated by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley and tells of what happened at their trial in 1966. We see how Brady and Hindley turned on David Smith, the 17-year-old who witnessed them murder Edward Evans and shopped them to the police the following day, by attempting to implicate him in their murders. This led to him being an almost daily victim of assaults by both locals and members of the victims' families. It tells the full story of the depths Myra Hindley went to in order to affect her escape from prison in 1973, how she eventually turned on Ian Brady and how she manipulated her way through her prison sentence until the day she died. It also shows how Ian Brady tormented the families of the victims from his prison cell. It tells the full story of how the body of Pauline Reade was recovered from Saddleworth Moor and also of the search for Keith Bennett, who to this day remains unfound. Printed here for the very first time are photographs of Myra Hindley during her incarceration released to the author from Home Office files held at the National Archives.

From 1970 to 1977 a major project to uncover source material for students of contemporary British history and politics was undertaken at the British Library of Political and Economic Science. Fiananced by the Social Science Research Council, and under the direction of Dr Chris Cook, this project has attempted a unique and systematic operation to locate, and then to make readily available, those archives that provide the indispensable source material for the contemporary historian. This volume (the fifth in the series) provides a guide to the papers of propagandists who were influential in British public life. Included in this volume are the papers of such persons as newspaper editors, leading economists, social reformers, socialist thinkers, trade unionists, industrialists and a variety of theologians and philanthropists. In all, this volume not only completes the findings of the project but opens up the archive sources of a hitherto neglected area of research into contemporary social and political history.

A History of British Elections since 1689 represents a unique single-volume authoritative reference guide to British elections and electoral systems from the Glorious Revolution to the present day. The main focus is on general elections and associated by-elections, but Chris Cook and John Stevenson also cover national referenda, European parliament elections, municipal elections, and elections to the Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies and the Scottish parliament. The outcome and political significance of all these elections are looked at in detail, but the authors also discuss broader themes and debates in British electoral history, for example: the evolution of the electoral system, parliamentary reform, women's suffrage, constituency size and numbers, elimination of corrupt practices, and other important topics. The book also follows the fortunes not only of the major political parties but of fringe movements of the extreme right and left. Combining data, summary and analysis with thematic overviews and chronological outlines, this major new reference provides a definitive guide to the long and varied history of British elections and is essential reading for students of British political history.

This major new reference work provides an authoritative and wide-ranging guide to archive sources now becoming available for British political history since 1945. With a user-friendly layout, the book presents a comprehensive range of 1,500 personal papers from leading statesmen, backbench politicians, writers, campaigners, diplomats and generals which cover the key aspects of British history since of the end of the Second World War. Compiled by an experienced archivist, this comprehensive, easy-to-use and authoritative guide is an invaluable resource for researchers of modern British history.

A History of British Elections since 1689 represents a unique single-volume authoritative reference guide to British elections and electoral systems from the Glorious Revolution to the present day. The main focus is on general elections and associated by-elections, but Chris Cook and John Stevenson also cover national referenda, European parliament elections, municipal elections, and elections to the Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies and the Scottish parliament. The outcome and political significance of all these elections are looked at in detail, but the authors also discuss broader themes and debates in British electoral history, for example: the evolution of the electoral system, parliamentary reform, women's suffrage, constituency size and numbers, elimination of corrupt practices, and other important topics. The book also follows the fortunes not only of the major political parties but of fringe movements of the extreme right and left. Combining data, summary and analysis with thematic overviews and chronological outlines, this major new reference provides a definitive guide to the long and varied history of British elections and is essential reading for students of British political history.

This new publication, a sister volume to the highly-acclaimed Routledge Guide to British Political Archives, provides a wide-ranging survey of the non-governmental archive sources for historians of post-war Europe. It provides, within a single volume, a rich treasure trove of resources drawn from the archives of the member states of the European Union and beyond. These major archive resources range from the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam to the Modern Records Centre at Warwick University, from the European University Institute at Florence to the Archive of Social Democracy near Bonn, from the Feltrinelli Institute in Milan to the Monnet Foundation in Lausanne. The volume also concentrates on providing resources for areas of Europe's modern political past now increasingly attracting serious historical research. They include the initial post-war reconstruction era, the rebirth of social democracy in Germany and Italy, the beginning of European integration, relations with Eastern Europe, the Cold War, decolonisation, the fall of Communism, and so forth. A vital part of the story is represented by the papers of the principal architects of European integration, such as Monnet, Spaak, Spinelli, Mansholt, and so forth. However, the remit of this volume extends far beyond statesmen and politicians. It aims to embrace a wider spectrum of European political activism - from libertarians to environmentalists, economists and human rights activists, campaigners for women's rights, peace activists, anti-globalists, trade unionists, leaders of the student movement, anarchists, federalists and anti-federalists, and a plethora of others. The wealth of information provided here will make this new publication the standard point of reference for students and historians.

In compiling this volume the editors have aimed to gather together, in one volume, as many of the important political facts as possible for a critical period of European history. In addition this book has also been designed as a companion volume to the existing European Political Facts 1918-1973 and to the forthcoming European Political Facts 1789-1848. Once again the editors have taken all the countries of Europe, from Portugal and Spain to Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire

The Routledge Companion to Christian History is an indispensable aid for anyone seeking comprehensive coverage of the facts in clear, concise and easy to use language. It covers: all key events in the Christian calendar from the persecution of the Roman Empire to the fall of Communism and the rise of Fundamentalism the impact of Islam, the Crusades, Monasticism, and the spread of popular religious movements cross-cultural coverage; as well as Western Christendom, the Orthodox churches of the East and the 'new' churches of Asia and Africa. Fully cross referenced throughout with a combination of chronologies, glossary and statistics this packed volumes contains everything for the first time student or for anyone revisiting the subject.

This is compact and highly accessible work of reference that covers the broad sweep of events as Europe transformed during the period from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. This companion examines the centuries that saw the Reformation and counter-Reformation, the expansion of Europe and the beginnings of imperialism and enormous changes in the way government and kingship were conducted. With a wealth of chronologies, tables, family trees and maps, this handy book is an indispensable resource for all students and teachers of early modern history.

This is compact and highly accessible work of reference that covers the broad sweep of events as Europe transformed during the period from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. This companion examines the centuries that saw the Reformation and counter-Reformation, the expansion of Europe and the beginnings of imperialism and enormous changes in the way government and kingship were conducted. With a wealth of chronologies, tables, family trees and maps, this handy book is an indispensable resource for all students and teachers of early modern history.

This major new reference work provides an authoritative and wide-ranging guide to archive sources now becoming available for British political history since 1945.

With a user-friendly layout, the book presents a comprehensive range of 1,500 personal papers from leading statesmen, backbench politicians, writers, campaigners, diplomats and generals which cover the key aspects of British history since of the end of the Second World War.

Compiled by an experienced archivist, this comprehensive, easy-to-use and authoritative guide is an invaluable resource for researchers of modern British history.

The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914 is an accessible and indispensable compendium of essential information on the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Using chronologies, maps, glossaries, an extensive bibliography, a wealth of statistical information and nearly two hundred biographies of key figures, this clear and concise book provides a comprehensive guide to modern British history from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the outbreak of the First World War. As well as the key areas of political, economic and social development of the era, this book also covers the increasingly emergent themes of sexuality, leisure, gender and the environment, exploring in detail the following aspects of the nineteenth century: parliamentary and political reform chartism, radicalism and popular protest the Irish Question the rise of Imperialism the regulation of sexuality and vice the development of organised sport and leisure the rise of consumer society. This book is an ideal reference resource for students and teachers alike.