In this definitive account of the Peninsular War (1808-14), Napoleon's six-year war against Spain, Ronald Fraser examines what led to the emperor's devastating defeat against the popular opposition - the guerrillas - and their British and Portuguese allies. As well as relating the histories of the great political and military figures of the war, Fraser brings to life the anonymous masses - the artisans, peasants and women who fought, suffered and died - and restores their role in this barbaric war to its rightful place while overturning the view that this was a straightforward military campaign. This vivid, meticulously researched book offers a distinct and profound vision of "Napoleon's Vietnam" and shows the reality of the disasters of war: the suffering, discontents and social upheaval that accompanied the fighting. With a new Introduction by Perry Anderson.

Epic adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel. During World War Two, Charles Rider (Jeremy Irons) is stationed at the now deserted stately home, Brideshead Manor, formerly the residence of the Flyte family. He recalls how, as a Cambridge undergraduate, he first visited Brideshead after befriending Lord Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews). Charles then became caught up with the Flytes and their problems, most notably Sebastian's burgeoning alcoholism.

Sylvester McCoy stars as the seventh doctor in this double bill of three-part serials, both of which feature the character Ace (Sophie Aldred), from the BBC's long-running sci-fi show. In 'Dragonfire' the Doctor and Mel (Bonnie Langford) find themselves on the planet Svartos where they are forced by the evil, exiled Kane (Edward Peel) to search for the mysterious Dragonfire. Dragonfire is Kane's only chance to help mastermind a bitter revenge plot and escape home. In 'The Happiness Patrol' the Doctor and Ace arrive on planet Terra Alpha, ruled by Helen A (Sheila Hancock), where the inhabitants are sentenced to death by the Happiness Patrol if they display signs of sadness. The Doctor and Ace attempt to bring down Helen A's regime but first they will need to deal with her followers, including demented executioner the Kandy Man (David John Pope).

Classic children's adventure yarn based on the Arthur Ransome book. The story recounts the adventures of a group of children who call themselves the Swallows, after their boat, as they holiday in the Lake District during the 1920s. There they meet two piratical sisters, known as the Amazons, who have already claimed the waters for themselves.

"He turned his back on the old man to mourn in silence this unnecessary death and his part in it; but the sight of the coffin brought anger instead ..." In 1957, a burned-out British journalist leaves London to recuperate in the idyllic Andalusian village of Benalamar, a place little changed since the tumult of Spain's civil war. But when a foreign businessman arrives with plans to develop the area, the community is thrown into turmoil. During a time of drought, the promise of a reservoir is meant to allay the fears of the local populace, but the developer has little idea what he is playing with. A local farmer commits suicide, and the investigation that follows leads back into recent history, lost love and civil war - all a far cry from the tranquil retreat that once promised respite from a world of lurid headlines and backroom shenanigans. Drought is a keenly felt novel about memory, love and the clash between the old world and the new.

This is a new release of the original 1933 edition.

" P]robably the most distinguished writer of English prose in the novel form at present living. He cannot do other than write beautifully." - Humbert Wolfe
"The book abounds in glowing experiences of a world of colour and sensation, minutely imagined. . . . The description of dawn at Kew Gardens is so lovely that the reader will be tempted to endanger his respectability by emulating Judy and climbing the wall." - "Times Literary Supplement"
"Among the few highly important and significant novelists of the day." - "The Observer"
"There is poetry beneath Mr. Fraser's fantastic humour as there is a cunning grace in his prose." - "The Times"
"The erotic awakening of a young woman . . . Judy, a student at Kew Gardens . . . is engaged to a personable young man who does not have the ability to arouse her, though she likes him, and she is disturbed by the utilitarian, materialistic life-philosophy of her businessman brother. She becomes more and more sensitive to the hidden life of the plants at Kew, and comes to see them as personalities, with the giant orchid in the role of passionate lover. . . . Told with delicate imagery and fine perceptions, a minor rococoism of art deco literature." - E.F. Bleiler, "The Guide to Supernatural Fiction" (1983)
This first-ever reprinting of "Flower Phantoms" (1926), the best-known novel by Ronald Fraser (1888-1974), features a new introduction by Mark Valentine.

1960s British comedy drama in which a young woman finds a new career as a beauty queen. Attractive typist Shirley Freeman (Janette Scott) is encouraged by newspaper man Don Mackenzie (Ian Hendry) to enter a beauty pageant while on vacation. After winning she decides to quit her job and become a full-time contestant, proving to be very successful. However, her success won't last forever...

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

In Hiding is the spellbinding story of a man who spent thirty years holed up in his own home to escape execution. Manuel Cortes was a Socialist Party member, an activist in the Republic's land reform movement, and an organizer in the farm workers' unionization struggles. As Mayor of Mijas in Andalusia, he became caught up in the ferment of revolutionary Spain in the late 1930s. A marked man, he evaded Franco's execution squads to survive in hiding through a generation of persecution and terror until amnesty was decreed in 1969-a period of thirty years. With his wife and daughter, he attempted to escape to France, but failed. In this absorbing narrative, based on numerous interviews with the mayor conducted by Ronald Fraser, a master of oral history, Cortes's truly awe-inspiring ordeal is supplemented by his family's life histories and experiences during the Civil War. A haunting tale and a monument to the art of the oral historian, In Hiding reminds us what the Spanish Civil War was really about.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

British sex comedy. Mary Millington, 70's sex goddess, stars as a lady who leads a takeover of a health farm, developing some interesting new treatments along the way. When a pair of forgers hide out at the farm, events reach a hilariously naughty climax.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Jean-Paul Sartre was undoubtedly one of the greatest and most popular philosophers of the 20th Century. Also a prominent novelist, playwright and biographer, Sartre was, above all, the embodiment of the engaged intellectual, active in a variety of political causes, as well as an individual who attempted to live his life in accordance with the philosophy he professed. It was this that gave his lifelong preoccupation with freedom, choice and what he came to refer to as social conditioning, its cutting edge. Sartre's life was in many ways an illustration of his brand of existentialism in action. In these two interviews, the Marxist historian and scholar Perry Anderson takes Sartre on a wide-ranging tour of his philosophy and politics. The skilful and part chronological interrogation of various fundamental Satrean concepts, and the detailed and complex elucidations of them by the philosopher, make these interviews a must for anyone interested in Sartre's philosophical, political and ethical development. The wide range of topics discussed also includes 'freedom of choice', his uneasy relationship with Freudian concepts, his debates with Marx, and his acute observations on drama, the Cultural Revolution, Stalinism, the May 'Events' and of course, the US war on Vietnam. Their breadth remains a testimony to one man's attempt to make philosophical sense of the tumultuous world around him.

A children's classic double bill. An adaptation of E. Nesbit's children's classic, 'The Railway Children' follows the fortunes of a group of Edwardian children whose father is wrongly jailed for treason. Exiled with their mother to a life of genteel poverty on the Yorkshire Moors, they are soon drawn to the railway at the bottom of the garden, and all kinds of adventures. 'Swallows and Amazons' is a classic children's adventure yarn based on the Arthur Ransome book. The story recounts the adventures of a group of children who call themselves the Swallows, after their boat, as they holiday in the Lake District during the 1920s. There, they meet two piratical sisters, known as the Amazons, who have already claimed the waters for themselves.