Before the advent of roads in western Washington, steamboats of the Mosquito Fleet swarmed all over Puget Sound. Sidewheelers, stern-wheelers, and propeller-driven, they ranged from the tiny 40-foot Marie to the huge 282-foot Yosemite, and from the famous Flyer to the unknown Leota. Floating stores like the Vaughn and shrimpers like the Violet sailed the same waters as the elegant Great Lakes lady, the Chippewa, and the homely Willie. A few, like the Bob Irving and Blue Star, died spectacularly or, like Major Tompkins, shipwrecked after a short time, while others began new lives as tugboats or auto ferries; some even survive today as excursion boats like the Virginia V. From 1853 to modern car ferries in the 1920s, this volume chronicles the heyday of steamboating--a unique segment of maritime history--from modest launch to sleek liner.

George Heriot, jeweller to King James VI and I, moves with the Court from Edinburgh to London to take over the English throne. It is 1603. Life is a Babel of languages and glittering new wealth. The Scottish court speaks Danish, German, Middle Scots, French and Latin. King James gives Shakespeare his first secure position, and to calm the perfidious religious tensions, he commissions his translation of the Bible.George becomes wealthier than the king as he creates a fashion for hat jewels and mingles with Drummond of Hawthornden, Ben Johnson, Inigo Jones and the mysterious ambassador Luca Von Modrich... However both king and courtier bow before the phenomenal power invested in their wives.

These three plays, composed between 1994 and 2004 are linked by the theme of war: actual, remembered or threatened. They are all tragicomic and each written for a strong female lead.

Known above all for his translations of Proust, Charles Scott Moncrieff also had his own poetry, short stories and war serials regularly published in literary periodicals. Here for the first time is a collection of these, put together with an introduction by Jean Findlay, author Chasing Lost Time - the life of CK Scott Moncrieff, Soldier, Spy and Translator (Chatto and Windus 2014, Vintage 2015, Farrar Straus and Giroux 2015)