"The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, carefully pieced together at the heart and hearth of the ancestral home of the Crawleys, takes readers deeper into the story of every important member of the Downton estate.This lavish, entirely new book focuses on each character individually, examining their motivations, their actions, and the inspirations behind them."--

"They were the super rich of their times, pampered beyond belief-- the early 20th-century Edwardian gentry, who lived like superstars, their every desire or need catered to by an army of butlers, servants, footmen, housekeepers and grooms. Class, money, inheritance, luxury and snobbery dominated every aspect of the lives of the upper-crust Edwardian family. Below stairs the staff inhabited a completely different world, their very lives dependent on...

"Following in the tradition of Upstairs, Downstairs and Robert Altman's 2001 Edwardian comic feature Gosford Park, Manor House takes a fascinating look at the grand and grueling British class system of the early 1900s"--Container.

"Nineteenth-century Britons experienced an astonishing and unprecedented series of changes. Cities swelled to previously unimaginable sizes, there were great leaps forward in science and technology that, when coupled with a growing religious skepticism, rendered the intellectual landscape increasingly unrecognizable. Most of the countries in the world that experienced these changes were racked by political and social unrest. However, Britain maintained...

"This lively book reveals the clothing and fashion of the world depicted in Jane Austen's beloved books, focusing on the long Regency between the years 1795 and 1825. During this period, accelerated change saw Britain's turbulent entry into the modern age, and clothing reflected these transformations. Starting with the intimate perspective of clothing the self, Dress in the Age of Jane Austen moves outward through the social and cultural spheres of...

1907. Lady Alice Emerson is entirely unsatisfied with the endless stream of boring suitors her family finds appropriate. She wants something more. Something daring. Something real. Each tiresome new suitor only serves to further inflame Lady Alice's combustible attraction to Thornbrook Park's rugged, manly estate manager, Logan Winthrop. Despite Logan's stubborn attempts to avoid her, Lady Alice is irresistible, and so is the forbidden desire exploding...

When the author, a British journalist moves to Moscow, she discovers an apartment on Romanov Street that was once home to the Soviet elite. One of the most infamous neighbors was the ruthless apparatchik, Stalin's henchman, Vyacheslav Molotov, who was a participant in the collectivizations and the Great Purge, and also an ardent bibliophile. In what was formerly his apartment, she uncovers an extensive library and an old magic lantern, two things...

Ava is asked to dress up as an inspirational figure for her school assembly, but who should she choose? Granny suggests famous familiar figures such as Winifred Atwell, Mary Seacole, and Rosa Parks, and tells Ava all about their fascinating histories, but Ava's classmates have already claimed them -- and she must choose someone else. But who? When Ava finds a mysterious old suitcase and Granny shares her own history, and how she came to England on...

"On today's world stage, there is one leader who stands apart from the rest. Queen Elizabeth II has seen more of the planet and its people than any other head of state and has engaged with the world like no other monarch in modern history. Since her coronation, she has visited over 130 countries across the ever-changing globe, acting as diplomat, stateswoman, pioneer, and peace-broker. She has transformed her father's old empire into the Commonwealth,...

"Guy Burgess was the most important, complex, and fascinating of The Cambridge Spies--Maclean, Philby, Blunt--brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed...