Situated in the heart of London's Holland Park are the remains of Holland House - the site of what was once England's most celebrated political salon. In the first thirty years of the nineteenth century - when the Whig party was almost constantly out of office - the home of the third Lord Holland became the unofficial centre of the Opposition. Devoted to the ideals of the prominent Whig statesman Charles James Fox and enriched by the progressive views of a new generation of writers, critics and politicians, the influence of Holland House permeated the political climate. At a time when revolutions threatened to engulf Europe, the Whig tradition of aristocratic liberalism proved to be one of the chief factors in the peaceful achievement of parliamentary reform. Presided over by the beautiful and clever Lady Holland and combining discussion of politics and the arts, the salon attracted the greatest names of the age - Byron, Talleyrand and Madame de Stael were all frequent visitors. In this book, Linda Kelly brings to life the colourful world of Holland House.

Therapists play a crucial role in helping children and their families as they navigate the often stormy course of living with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). As cases of autism are increasingly diagnosed, the number of therapists with specialized training cannot keep pace. What is the clinician without prior experience with this disability to do when considering working with a child on the autism spectrum? This start here book a practical beginner s guide to ASD for therapists provides the answer. Without getting bogged down in the complexity of the disorder or attempting to turn practitioners into autism specialists, it points therapists novices and seasoned alike in the right direction so they re better equipped to provide support. Because autism can manifest in so many different ways, no cookie-cutter treatment exists and therapists need to be conversant with the basics, from assessment and treatment approaches to common therapeutic issues that can arise. This book serves as an invaluable road map.

Viewing ASD as a social communicative disorder, the authors provide a sound background of its manifestations and therapeutic interventions, helping therapists to define treatment issues and prepare for potentially difficult client encounters. Filled with practical insights and guidance, the book explains how to ask the right questions of parents and how to assess their answers. It presents a philosophy to guide parents and others in changing their perceptions of the child s disability so as to pave the way for effective approaches to be used within the child s environment. Concrete tools are provided to help determine goodness of fit between the therapist and client, in addition to several helpful reproducible intake and assessment forms available for download on an accompanying CD. Charting the Course is an important therapist s guide representing an all-encompassing approach to working not only with children and their parents, but also with their siblings, family members, and those in the community who are involved in their lives. Ultimately, this book provides a reassuring anchor for any clinician new to treating this disability as well as for those who are seeking alternative approaches to their ongoing work with children diagnosed with ASD."

In 1770, at the end of his tether, the seventeen-year-old poet Thomas Chatterton, penniless and starving, despairing of success and tormented by a sense of failure, committed suicide in his garret room. Within a few years he was transformed into a legend. In the dawning Romantic Movement, he became a symbol of some of its most powerful preoccupations - suicide, youth and neglected genius. During the two ensuing centuries, Chatterton has become one of the most famous of literary suicides. To the Romantics in the nineteenth century, the premature death of this precocious genius became a source of inspiration. His suicide inspired Vigny's melodramatic play Chatterton, and forty years later, Leoncavallo's opera spread to Italy. The Pre-Raphaelites, especially Rossetti, were fascinated by his death. In the twentieth century, the eccentric scholar and poet E. W. Meyerstein developed a lifelong passion for him. Linda Kelly explores the development, pervasiveness and astonishing persistence of the Chatterton legend, throwing new and revealing light on the writers and artists who admired him. 'A book that leaves out nothing important and yet keeps us reading like a novel.' John Wain

In 1792-3, Juniper Hall was the unlikely refuge for a group of French aristocrats, freshly escaped from the dramas of the revolution. Into the quiet Surrey countryside descended the sophisticated, slightly scandalous Madame de Stael and her entourage of friends and lovers. All had played leading roles in the French Revolution, but with the excesses of the Terror beginning, they feared for their lives in France. The novelist Fanny Burney was staying nearby, with her sister, Susanna Phillips. Captivated by their new neighbours, the sisters became the friends and confidantes of the French. Linda Kelly elegantly recreates the troubled and brilliant world of those French exiles who, at a time when their hopes and ambitions lay in ruins, refused to abandon their high spirits, their intellectual curiosity - or their loves. 'This skilful evocation and weaving together of place and personality delighted me ... a delicate and witty summoning up of the ghosts of Fanny Burney, Madame de Stael and their French friends and lovers in rural Surrey in the summer of 1793.' Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday 'A short scintillating study of young de Stael, her lovers, and her shocked friend Fanny Burney in Surrey of all places: Linda Kelly, Juniper Hall: An English Refuge from the French Revolution.' Richard Holmes, New York Review of Books

The first night of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal, on 8 May 1777, was one of the great dates in theatrical history. From then on, Sheridan was launched into eighteenth-century society, as much at home in the salons of the Duchess of Devonshire and the Prince of Wales as in the taverns and coffee-houses around Drury Lane. Sheridan's comedies were all written by the time he was twenty-eight. For the next thirty years he was wholly involved in his twin careers as manager of the Drury Lane theatre and Member of Parliament. At a time when politics were dominated by a few aristocratic families, he rose above his poverty to become one of the greatest parliamentary figures of the age. In the theatre, he presided over one of the most brilliant periods in the history of the English stage. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, Kelly gives a comprehensive picture of Sheridan's tempestuous career and chaotic private life. For all his faults, his charm was irresistible - 'there has been nothing like it since the days of Orpheus,' wrote Byron. It is charm that illuminates her narrative, bringing Sheridan to life. 'I can imagine no better biography of this talented, dynamic, impossibly unreliable firework of a man.' Victoria Glendinning, Daily Telegraph

A murderer stalks the Gateway City. The Central West End Ripper is a Keeper vampire who believes he alone is at the top of the food chain. He slashes his victims to mask his real obsession: drinking blood from humans. His murderous rampage not only threatens the lives of young women, but could also expose a secret community of Freeblood vampires.

Freeblood vampire Theodore Falcon is determined to stop the Ripper and keep his community intact. Unlike his ancestors, Falcon obtains his nourishment from a blood bank. He and a handful of Freeblood vampires have found a way coexist with Ordinaries-normal humans-but only if the clan remains a well-guarded secret at all costs. Now, the actions of the Ripper threaten this precarious balance.

To catch the Ripper, Falcon builds a team of extraordinary investigators that include his psychologist lady love; his brother, a rock magician; his mentor, a Catholic priest; and an Ordinary, a courageous disabled veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Together, the group prowls the streets in their hunt for the Ripper, all willing to risk their lives to end the evil that threatens their city.

The Ripper is crafty, though, and Falcon knows he faces a determined foe. Only time will tell if the Ripper's own arrogance become his downfall, or if he will once again elude capture.

A series of three books, arranged by key stage (KS 1, Lower KS2, Upper KS2), to help primary teachers to encourage children to engage in daily physical activity and to keep active throughout the school day. A ten minute activity per page gives teachers easy-to-implement ideas for getting pupils moving. Each A4 page contains everything the teacher needs to carry out an activity including instructions and diagrams and information on curriculum links and extension ideas. Equipment needed is kept to a minimum and children do not need to change into PE kit to take part. Includes calming activities; energising games; exercises to improve coordination, teamwork and stamina; action rhymes and skipping games.

Susanna Burney was by all accounts the sweetest and most 'spirituelle' member of the famous family which enlivened English cultural life in the later 18th century. Though less well-known than her sister, the novelist Fanny Burney, Susanna was the principal attraction of her father's musical salon for the last of the great castrati, Gasparo Pacchierotti, during his triumphant season in London in 1779-80. An unspoken romance between the singer and Susanna dominates her letter-journals to her sister, written during a year which also saw a near invasion of England, the Gordon Riots and the death of Captain Cook on the far side of the world, an event at which both Susanna's brother and her future husband were present. Drawing on these still-unpublished journals, historian Linda Kelly tells a tale of the Pacchierotti affair, the eventful year and the sadly brief life of her charming young heroine with an immediacy that makes it feel almost contemporary.

The arrival of Charles-Maurice, Prince de Talleyrand-Perigord, as French ambassador in London in September 1830, was regarded as a great event by the British government. Two months earlier the July Revolution in Paris, overthrowing the reactionary rule of Charles X, had brought the liberal Louis-Philippe to the throne. Talleyrand, the best-known diplomat in Europe, had emerged from retirement at the age of 76 to lend his support to the new monarchy and to confirm its acceptance by the other European powers.Few people had aroused more controversy than Talleyrand. A former bishop whose love affairs were notorious, and a turncoat who had abandoned every master he had served, he was widely detested by the French public. But he was greeted as a celebrity in London, where the July Revolution - foreshadowing Britain's own Reform Bill - had been hugely popular. London society had not yet acquired the virtuous tone of the Victorian era. The easy-going morals of the Regency had carried on into the reign of William IV, and the fact that Talleyrand's niece by marriage, the Duchess of Dino, 37 years his junior, was not only his hostess but reputedly his mistress, merely added to theinterest he induced.Talleyrand had arrived in London at a perilous moment. Revolution had broken out in Belgium, where the Belgians demanded independence from Holland to which they had been forcibly joined in 1815. The autocratic powers of Russia, Austria and Prussia threatened war to restore the status quo. It was largely thanks to Talleyrand's diplomatic skills and his close collaboration with the British that the creation of Belgium as a constitutional monarchy was peacefully achieved.Talleyrand's four years in London were the last and, in his own opinion, the most important of his diplomatic career. Linda Kelly's sparkling narrative brings the period to life, providing a fascinating picture of one of Europe's greateststatesmen as he appeared to English eyes.

Situated in the heart of London's Holland Park are the remains of Holland House-the site of what was once England's most celebrated political salon. In the first thirty years of the nineteenth century -when the Whig party were almost constantly out of office-the home of the third Lord Holland became the unofficial centre of the Opposition. Devoted to the ideals of Charles James Fox-the prominent Whig statesman who was also Lord Holland's uncle-and enriched by the progressive views of a new generation of writers,critics and politicians,the influence of Holland House permeated the political climate. Combining politics and the arts,the salon attracted the greatest names of the age-Byron, Thomas Macaulay, Talleyrand and Madame de Stael all dined at Holland House. At a time when revolutions threatened to engulf Europe, the Whig tradition of aristocratic liberalism-avoiding the extremes of radicalism and reaction-proved to be one of the chief factors in the peaceful achievement of parliamentary reform,epitomised by the Great Reform Act of 1832. The embodiment of this tradition was Holland House. The salon was presided over by Lady Holland-a magnetic hostess. Beautiful and clever she had left her much-older husband, Sir Godfrey Webster,to marry Lord Holland and as a result was ostracised in many London drawing rooms. But in Holland House, society would come to her. Lady Holland was in the thick of Whig discussions, occasionally following her own political line.She had a special passion for Napoleon and sent him over a thousand books in St Helena. Occupying a key position in the political and cultural life of the age, Holland House was a unique and important force at a time of great political change. Linda Kelly brings to life the colourful world of Holland House, providing a vivid portrait of London's greatest political salon.