Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd is our preeminent chronicler of London. In Queer City, he looks at the metropolis in a whole new way - through the history and experiences of its gay population. In Roman Londinium the penis was worshipped and homosexuality was considered admirable. The city was dotted with lupanaria ('wolf dens' or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels) and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops and clergy, monks...

"The arrival of an enigmatic stranger wreaks havoc on the denizens of the idyllic English village of Little Camborne; most notably two apparently harmless women. Miss Finch and Miss Swallow, cousins, have put their pasts behind them and settled into conventional country life. But when Theodore Cadmus - from Caldera, a Mediterranean island nobody has heard of - moves into the middle cottage, the safe monotony of their lives is shattered.The fates of...

In Queer City, the acclaimed Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way–through the complete history and experiences of its gay and lesbian population. In Roman Londinium, the city was dotted with lupanaria ("wolf dens" or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels), and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks, and missionaries. And so began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure....

Examines the Stuart dynasty during a turbulent seventeenth century marked by civil war, the execution of Charles I, the rule of Oliver Cromwell, and the deposition and exile of James II.

Ackroyd takes readers from William of Orange's accession following the Glorious Revolution to the Regency, when the flamboyant Prince of Wales ruled in the stead of his mad father, George III. Late Stuart and Georgian England marked the creation of the great pillars of the English state, and was also a revolutionary era in English letters. It was also a time of extraordinary and unprecedented technological innovation, which saw England utterly and...

A glittering, evocative, fascinating, story-filled portrait of Venice, the ultimate city, embracing facts and romance, history and artists, carnival masks and leper colonies, wars and sieges, and scandals and seductions.

A concise portrait of the iconic film star traces his humble theatrical beginnings through his honorary Academy Award win, sharing anecdotes about his lesser-known antics and associations.