The two decades after Waterloo marked the great age of foreign fortune hunters in England. Each year brought a new influx of impecunious Continental noblemen to the world's richest country, and the more brides they carried off, the more alarmed society became. The most colourful of these men was Prince Hermann von Puckler-Muskau (1785-1871), remembered today as Germany's finest landscape gardener. In the mid-1820s, however, his efforts to turn his estate into a magnificent park came close to bankrupting him. To save his legacy his wife Lucie devised an unusual plan: they would divorce so that Puckler could marry an heiress who would finance further landscaping and, after a decent interval, be cajoled into accepting Lucie's continued residence. In September 1826, his marriage dissolved, Puckler set off for London. Drawing on the daily letters sent from England to his ex-wife and other manuscript sources in the Puckler Archive in Brandenburg, Peter James Bowman gives blow-by-blow accounts of Puckler's courtships with the daughters of a physician, an admiral, a Scottish baronet, an East India Company stockholder and a retail jeweller. The story is enriched with details of his social life among the resident diplomats, his gambling and money troubles, his love affairs with a French seamstress and a German opera singer, and the hours he spent with the capital's prostitutes. Puckler is the most intelligent of the overseas visitors who noted their impressions of Regency England. His matrimonial quest brings him into contact with such luminaries as Walter Scott, George Canning, Princess Lieven, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, Beau Brummell and John Nash. The object of many rumours and caricatures, the prince sticks doggedly to his task for nearly two years. And just when it seems that he has failed, England fills his coffers in the most unexpected way, and in doing so launches him on a new career. In telling the story of Puckler's adventures in the context of the trend for Anglo-European marriages based on the exchange of a title for money, The Fortune Hunter writes a new chapter in the history of England's relationship with its Continental neighbours.

When it is discovered that the reigning world chess champion, Mirko Czentovic, is on board a cruiser heading for Buenos Aires, a fellow passenger challenges him to a game. Czentovic easily defeats him, but during the rematch a mysterious Austrian, Dr B., intervenes and, to the surprise of everyone, helps the underdog obtain a draw. When, the next day, Dr B. confides in a compatriot travelling on the same ship and decides to reveal the harrowing secret behind his formidable chess knowledge, a chilling tale of imprisonment and psychological torment unfolds. Stefan Zweig's last and most famous story, 'A Game of Chess' was written in exile in Brazil and explores its author's anxieties about the situation in Europe following the rise of the Nazi regime. The tale is presented here in a brand-new translation, along with three of the master storyteller's most acclaimed novellas: Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman, The Invisible Collection and Incident on Lake Geneva.

What percentage of the printed and online media is dedicated to celebrity culture today? A tricky calculation; but there is no doubt that the percentage was pretty high when mass media first acquired a recognisably modern form in the Regency period. Peter James Bowman shows how, following the outrageous fame of Lord Byron, an interest in the foibles rather than the achievements of prominent individuals was kindled and sustained by newspapers, satirical prints and society gossip. Here are five pen-portraits of colourful men and women who played leading roles in their day but whose reputations subsequently faded, figures who for this reason better represent their age than those whose importance transcends it. Their peculiar spheres of activity - the stage, politics, diplomacy, art, literature and fashion - are also explored. Harriot Mellon, the illegitimate daughter of a wardrobe-keeper in a company of strolling players, married the elderly banker Thomas Coutts; seven years later, she was the richest widow in the land and a target of ferocious abuse. Dorothea Lieven, the Russian ambassador's wife, used her intellect, dignity and a talent for flattery to entrance numerous statesmen and become a force in British politics. Richard Grenville, Duke of Buckingham, was a corrupt parliamentarian who squandered a vast income and caused the decline of the mighty Grenville dynasty. Lady Charlotte Bury was mocked by Thackeray as 'Lady Flummery' because of her execrable novels - but she was a great beauty who married for love not once, but twice. Sir Thomas Lawrence deserved his eminence as an artist, but had to use all his charm and courtliness to conceal the potentially explosive secrets of his private life. Here is a cast of characters to savour, one that reveals the realities of the period as no Austen novel could.

A moving love story and a vivid depiction of Berlin in the 1870s, from Germany's greatest nineteenth-century novelist Theodor Fontane. Lene is a beautiful, orphaned young seamstress, and Botho is a handsome, aristocratic cavalry officer. They are in love, yet know they have only a short time together as society deems their relationship impossible and refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of their feelings. But while Botho appears to have a glittering life ahead of him, the love he feels may yet be his undoing. Published in 1887, On Tangled Paths caused a scandal on publication with its portrayal of a sexual affair across the classes, and is a taut, flawless masterpiece. Theodor Fontane was born in the Prussian province of Brandenburg in 1819. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he made his living as a writer. From 1855 to 1859, he lived in London and worked as a freelance journalist and press agent for the Prussian embassy. While working as a war correspondent during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1 he was taken prisoner, but released after two months. His first novel, Before the Storm, was published when he was fifty-eight and was followed by sixteen further novels, of which Effi Briest, No Way Back and On Tangled Paths are all published in Penguin Classics. He died in 1898. Peter James Bowman completed a PhD on Fontane at Cambridge University, and now works as a writer and translator. 'On Tangled Paths has the flawless logic and beautiful design of the novella at its best' - Paul Binding, The Spectator 'There is an undertow of sadness to this novel, yet to read it is a joy, for its humanity, subtlety and visual immediacy' - Ruth Pavey, The Independent 'Theodor Fontane's first true masterpiece; it has a perfect beginning, a perfect ending, and no superfluous sentence in between' - Henry Garland

Orphaned at an early age, Heidi has been brought up by her mother's sister Dete in Switzerland. Having been offered a job in Frankfurt, however, her aunt is forced to entrust her young charge into the care of her grandfather, the reclusive Alp-Uncle who lives in the mountains without any interaction with the villagers beneath. The curmudgeonly old man is initially reluctant to accept the new arrangement, but his grand-daughter's warmth, cleverness and exuberance soon win him over, while Heidi learns to love her new surroundings and makes a new friend, Peter the goatherd. But as Heidi gets settled in her new life, little does she suspect that a major upheaval is just around the corner. A timeless classic of Swiss literature that has inspired many adaptations and has captured the imaginations of children the world over, Heidi's Early Lessons and Travels is here presented in a brand-new, unabridged translation by James Bowman, with charming illustrations by Susan Hellard.