In Subversive Habits, Shannen Dee Williams provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, hailing them as the forgotten prophets of Catholicism and democracy. Drawing on oral histories and previously sealed Church records, Williams demonstrates how master narratives of women's religious life and Catholic commitments to racial and gender justice fundamentally change when the lives and experiences of African American nuns are taken seriously. For Black Catholic women and girls, embracing the celibate religious state constituted a radical act of resistance to white supremacy and the sexual terrorism built into chattel slavery and segregation. Williams shows how Black sisters-such as Sister Mary Antona Ebo, who was the only Black member of the inaugural delegation of Catholic sisters to travel to Selma, Alabama, and join the Black voting rights marches of 1965-were pioneering religious leaders, educators, healthcare professionals, desegregation foot soldiers, Black Power activists, and womanist theologians. In the process, Williams calls attention to Catholic women's religious life as a stronghold of white supremacy and racial segregation-and thus an important battleground in the long African American freedom struggle.

In this sequel to 'Star Wars Episode I: A New Hope' (1977), the Rebel Alliance flees the power of Darth Vader (Dave Prowse) once again and finds refuge on the frozen planet of Hoth, but their safe place does not stay safe for long. The all-star cast also includes Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.

The next instalment in the 'Star Wars' franchise. Rebel Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and his friends continue to battle evil in the form of the decadent galactic empire, headed by Jedi-gone-bad Darth Vader (Dave Prowse, with the voice of James Earl Jones), as the ruthless Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) sets plans in motion to build a second Death Star with the purpose of destroying the Rebel Alliance.

Box set containing four films from the popular 'Batman' film series. 'Batman' (1989) was the first big screen outing for Bob Kane's caped crusader. The streets of Gotham City are no longer safe for criminals, who are being picked off by a masked vigilante in a rubber suit - dubbed 'Batman' by the press. Reporter Alexander Knox (Robert Wuhl) teams with photographer Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) in an attempt to discover Batman's true identity - an investigation which leads them to the door of mysterious millioniare Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton). Meanwhile, crime boss Carl Grissom's (Jack Palance) attempt to rid himself of untrustworthy henchman Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) does not go according to plan, and after emerging physically - and mentally - disfigured from a vat of chemicals, Napier reinvents himself as the psychotic Joker. In 'Batman Returns' (1992), Oswald Cobblepot was abandoned by his parents as a baby. Thirty three years later, bent on revenge, he returns to Gotham City as the Penguin (Danny DeVito). First he begins a warped campaign to become Mayor, helped by millionaire businessman Max Shreck (Christopher Walken); next, he undertakes a mission to murder every first born son in Gotham - a plan which will avenge his own beginnings. Meanwhile, he has two adversaries to contend with: Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), the embittered ex-secretary of Max Shreck, and, of course, the old caped crusader himself (Keaton). In 'Batman Forever' (1995), former District Attorney Harvey Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) is terrorising Gotham City, when a new villain appears on the scene - the Riddler (Jim Carrey). Together they plot to discover Batman's (Val Kilmer) identity, using a device which can probe the human mind. Meanwhile, the caped crusader has been joined by Robin (Chris O'Donnell), whose trapeze-artist family have recently been slain by Two-Face. 'Finally, in 'Batman and Robin' (1997), Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (O'Donnell) have to stop the vengeful Mr Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from taking over Gotham City by using his new ice weapon. To make matters worse, the venomous Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) decides to join forces with Freeze, so making an almost undefeatable double-whammy of a team. Luckily for the caped crusader and his rebellious ward, they can team up with a new tough and courageous new partner - Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone).

It's 1921 and eighteen-year-old Daisy May and her little sister Mary-Jane, who is six, are orphaned. Times are tough and, to support her sister, Daisy has to work hard as a dancer in a nightclub, getting home late and hardly seeing Mary-Jane. One night a fire starts and Mary-Jane is alone in the house. The night's events lead to the sisters being split up and Daisy May begins to fear that she will never see Mary-Jane again...

The first three Star Wars films reworked as creator George Lucas intended. Using state-of-the-art technology, Lucas and his team cleaned up the prints, updated the special effects and added new footage.

Originally released before 'Episode I - The Phantom Menace' (1999) the films have been renamed to fit in with Lucas's original vision. The story follows the adventures of a band of fearless rebels who try to take on the might of the awesome Empire, led by the evil Emperor and Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader (Dave Prowse). Throughout their quest, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) meet terrifying foes, new allies and bizarre creatures.

In 'Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope' (1977), on discovering a secret hidden inside a droid that his family have bought, young farmhand Luke Skywalker becomes involved in a battle between the forces of light and the evil Empire. Along the way he meets up with a Jedi Knight (Alec Guinness), a roguish space pilot, a beautiful princess and an evil tyrant.

In 'Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back' (1980), after the destruction of the Death Star, the rebels led by Luke and Leia are on the run from the vengeful Empire. Holed up on an inhospitable ice planet, they are soon discovered and must flee across the galaxy. Luke decides to visit an old Jedi Knight while Han and Leia become involved in a game of cat and mouse with Vader and a host of bounty hunters led by Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch). In 'Star Wars Episode VI - Return of the Jedi' (1983), with Han being held captive by Jabba the Hutt (voice of Larry Ward), his friends Luke, Leia, Lando (Billy Dee Williams), Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO plan a rescue mission. Then the intrepid group must make another assault on the new, more powerful Death Star and Luke must face his destiny in the shape of Darth Vader and the Emperor.

As a little girl, brought up in an orphanage, Caroline Parker had always been told that Dept Ford was the place her disgraced mother had come from. So when years later her husband dies, leaving her penniless and with three young children to support, Caroline's first thought is to head for the place she has envisaged as home: Dept Ford. But to her horror, she finds that Dept Ford is not the country village she'd imagined, but in the middle of London, a huge, teeming city the likes of which she's never seen. Luckily a kindly passer-by takes pity on her weary children and puts them on the tram to a place where she might find lodgings which, as it turns out, is in Rotherhithe, not Deptford. And so it is Culver Road that becomes her true home, where Carrie - as her neighbours call her - and her family, helped out by the irrepressible Flo and her soft-hearted docker husband Alf, find themselves battling through times both good and bad. And it is in Culver Road that Carrie meets Jim, the enigmatic sailor who is to change her life ...

In Subversive Habits, Shannen Dee Williams provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, hailing them as the forgotten prophets of Catholicism and democracy. Drawing on oral histories and previously sealed Church records, Williams demonstrates how master narratives of women's religious life and Catholic commitments to racial and gender justice fundamentally change when the lives and experiences of African American nuns are taken seriously. For Black Catholic women and girls, embracing the celibate religious state constituted a radical act of resistance to white supremacy and the sexual terrorism built into chattel slavery and segregation. Williams shows how Black sisters-such as Sister Mary Antona Ebo, who was the only Black member of the inaugural delegation of Catholic sisters to travel to Selma, Alabama, and join the Black voting rights marches of 1965-were pioneering religious leaders, educators, healthcare professionals, desegregation foot soldiers, Black Power activists, and womanist theologians. In the process, Williams calls attention to Catholic women's religious life as a stronghold of white supremacy and racial segregation-and thus an important battleground in the long African American freedom struggle.

Identical twins Lily and Rose Flowers aren't from a rich family, but they lead a comfortable life in 1920s Rotherhithe with their mum and dad. The twins are the apple of their parents' eye, and each other's best friend - they always know what the other is thinking. Feisty Rose has a more rebellious nature than her sister, but it's never before interfered with their closeness. However, Rose's secret dissatisfaction with her humdrum lifestyle reaches a head when she meets the rich and handsome Rodger. To the shock of the Flowers family, she elopes with him to Gretna Green. Once Rose has the money and glamour she's always craved, nothing will persuade her to contact her family again; not even her father's death. And then, in the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, everything changes. With her charmed life in shreds and with no one left to turn to, Rose is determined to build bridges those she has hurt the most. But can forgiveness be sought so easily - and can she ever truly escape her troubled past?

Living in their two-up-two-down in Rotherhithe in 1938, Eileen and Ronald Wells lead a happy and settled existence with their three daughters, all of whom have jobs, boyfriends and promising lives ahead of them. But soon the storm clouds of war engulf Europe and they suddenly find their idyllic family life thrown into chaos. Throughout the country young people hasten to join up, and Eileen watches anxiously as her two older girls do the same, one in the air force and one in the land army, while the youngest goes into a factory. With her family scattered and the war getting worse by the day, Eileen throws herself into the community, always on hand to help friends and neighbours when tragedy strikes, while savouring any rare moments of celebration.

Born into terrible poverty, Millie Ash's hopes for a better life are threatened by a fatal accident in Dee Williams' heartrending new saga Millie Ash, born into terrible poverty in the backstreets of the East End, has always wanted to better herself. She gets her chance when she lands a position as a lady's companion, her charge the disabled daughter of a well-to-do London family. Millie adores her work, and even starts to develop feelings for the son of the house. But years later a tragic accident causes Millie to lose her job and, along with it, the life she so loved. As she goes from job to job, working variously as a typist, factory worker and nurse, will she ever find happiness, and love, again?

A heartrending story of family tragedy, Land Girls and lost love from bestselling author Dee Williams. When Babs Scott loses her beloved parents in an air raid, she finds herself homeless and alone in Rotherhithe. The Land Army offers her an escape and, despite the backbreaking toil, Babs loves the peaceful green fields and the fresh, clean air of Sussex. But when her new RAF sweetheart Pete dies on his return to the skies, Babs is grief-stricken once more. After the war and back in her home town, a foolish mistake changes Babs' life for ever. Has she lost her one chance for happiness?

It's late 1935, and Sue Reed is living with her parents in Rotherhithe, next door to her best friend Jane. Sue enjoys her day job, working for wealthy car dealer Fred Hunt, but her main love is dancing, and in the evenings she and Jane are always to be found at the local dance hall. When one memorable night the band brings in a devastatingly handsome new singer, Cy Taylor, Sue can't help falling for him and he invites her to visit him in his hotel room. But reality hits hard after the dance when Cy moves on. Just when she thinks life couldn't be worse, tragedy strikes. Will Sue ever find the love and happiness she craves?

When Ruby's father returns, shell-shocked, from the front lines of the Great War, the young girl realises that things will never be the same again. Forced to leave school and help her mother wash clothes, Ruby closes the door on her childhood. When she takes a job at the local laundry, Ruby enjoys the friendship of the other women there, but there's also bitchiness and jealousy amongst the workers. At home there's growing tension with the live-in landlord as Ruby grows into an attractive woman, but not the kind who's willing to use her charms to win favours. Ruby's heart belongs to one man only, a local boy she's known all her life, but there are many battles to be fought before they start a life together...

As World War Two enters its final year, Ruth Bentley feels life has dealt her more than her fair share of blows. She's lost her home in a bomb attack, and with her husband in the army, her daughters evacuated to Wales, and her mother killed and father injured in the attack, Ruth is left to face the devastation alone. But she finds comfort in the camaraderie of the Civil Defence office where she works and in her friendship with Lucy, a clippie on the buses. Lucy's husband is at sea, and the two women dream of the day when they'll be reunited with their loved ones. But as victory approaches, Ruth finds that the legacy of war is more powerful than even she had imagined...

When her friend and business partner Edwin Brown dies it seems as if Katherine Carter's own world has ended. Not only has her closest companion been taken from her, she's also lost the successful restaurant they built up together, as well as the comfortable home they shared with her young son. Now all this has been snatched away, for Edwin has left no will and his lecherous brother Gerald presumes he's inherited Katherine along with the house. With little money but full of determination Katherine escapes Gerald's violent advances and takes lodgings in Rotherhithe, with her cook's sister Milly. Despite its poverty, Docklands London is full of hope and friendship and, in helping her new neighbours through their difficulties, Katherine finally begins to tackle her troubled past. But even as she rebuilds her life around the pie-and-mash shop where she works, a terrible shadow is hanging over the country. And little does anyone know the horrors 1914 will unleash ...

Polly Perkins and her older brother Sid have never really liked each other and when, in a fit of spite, he flicks a fishbone at her and accidentally blinds her in one eye, it seems to Polly that he has blighted her entire future. But life carries on in 1930s Rotherhithe and Polly, like the other tenants of Penn's Place, is soon caught up in its daily struggles: battling to keep treasured possessions from being sold at the pawn shop, to hold her own in the rows which rage through her warring family, and to find herself a job. In the latter she succeeds and, having started as a tea girl at Bloom's Fashions, to her delight is offered a job in the office. There her friendship with the prosperous Bloom family grows, in particular with Sarah and her handsome brother David, whose lifestyle in Putney is so different from her own. Meanwhile in Rotherhithe Polly finds herself being courted ever more insistently by Ron, Sid's best friend and, Polly sometimes suspects, his partner in crime. When in frustration he points out that, disfigured by her accident, Polly is lucky to get any suitors at all, she decides, reluctantly, to accept his proposal of marriage. But, as the country finds itself in the grip of war, it becomes clear that Sid - and her husband Ron - have jeopardised Polly's future once more.

Hannah Miller is a young girl who has had to grow up fast. Since the death of her parents she has taken responsibility for her sister Alice, determined to provide her with the love and stability they've both been denied. But when a violent incident with their bullying guardian finds the girls cold and hungry on the teeming streets of East London, Hannah realises she is out of her depth. She has little option but to accept the help of the strange old woman Maudie whose ramshackle home at the end of Rotherhithe's bustling Hope Street, Hannah soon realises, is a den of young thieves. Alice loves their new life, the companionship of the lively household and the gruff affection of the enigmatice, warm-hearted Maudie. But despite the fact that she is growing increasingly fond of Jack, one of the most long-standing of Maudie's brood, Hannah can never be happy living outside the law. As she battles for respectability, Hannah begins to see she is creating an ever-widening rift between herself and those she loves most dearly - one of whom, as the Great War approaches, might be taken from her for good ...

It's 1942 and Dorothy Taylor, now eighteen, dreams of distant lands far from the grey backstreets of Rotherhithe where she has spent all her life. As the war rages on, excitement comes in the form of the Americans posted in London. Although Dolly is engaged to Tony, a boy from her street who has been called up, she can't help but fall in love with Joe, a dashing American GI who eventually asks her to marry him. But America is not all she imagined it would be, and she's shocked by the cool welcome Joe's mother gives her. As she struggles to make friends and understand the man she's married, Dorothy begins to realise that she made a terrible mistake when she walked away from Tony, and wonders if he even remembers the innocent young girl who broke his heart. Only when she returns to Rotherhithe can she find out if there is still a chance of happiness for the two of them.

Pam King can't understand why her gran, Ivy, has forbidden her to see Robbie Bennetti. Robbie's a lovely lad, much less dangerous than Lu Cappa, who's always giving her the eye when he's out in his ice-cream van. Pam has to ask her best friend Jill to cover for her while she's out with Robbie. When Ivy finds out Pam's been lying, she makes sure the relationship with Robbie is over for good. Then Jill falls in love, and it's loneliness that makes Pam accept a date with Lu Cappa. Before she knows it, they're married. Even then, Pam knows Lu's still jealous of Robbie. And she can't help wondering what Lu's up to when he's out with his shifty brother. When Robbie comes back into their lives, it could be the last straw. One thing's for sure: until everyone starts to tell the truth, there will be as many sorrows as smiles in Pam's marriage ...