Biography > Historical

A Rothschild by birth and a Baroness by marriage, beautiful, spirited Pannonica - known as Nica - seemed to have it all: children, a handsome husband and a trust fund. But in the early 1950s she heard a piece by the jazz legend Thelonious Monk. The music overtook her like a magic spell, and she abandoned her marriage to go and find him. Arriving in New York, Nica was shunned by society but accepted by the musicians. They gave her friendship; she gave them material and emotional support. Her convertible Bentley was a familiar sight ... read more

In Lives, an extraordinary writer encounters some remarkable people - and evokes their inner lives. Peter Robb has an uncanny ability to get into the skin of other people: to show them in a new light, to home in on what makes them tick. In Australia, these range from Alex Dimitriades to Ivan Milat, from Marcia Langton to Julian Assange. In Italy, Robb immerses the reader in the worlds of Fellini, Caravaggio, Calvino and Pasolini. Elsewhere, his observations of EM Forster, Arthur Rimbaud, Peter Carey and Gore Vidal illuminate the re... read more

'These short stories are autobiographical but I am not their main sublect. Some pay homage to remarkable people (have known and loved. Some describe unusual places and events and are a kind of testimony.' But, contrary to what Halina says, none are 'commonplace' -- whether her stories tell of the gentile nanny who followed Halina's family into the ghetto; the Russian soldier who saved her at the end of the war and nursed her back to health; or the char ladies of Collins Street who first called the new immigrant a 'refol before taki... read more

One of Britain's most distinguished biographers turns her focus on one of the most vilified women of the twentieth century. Historian Anne Sebba has written the first full biography by a woman of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor. 'That woman', as she was referred to by the Queen Mother, became a hate figure for ensnaring a British king and destabilising the monarchy. Neither beautiful nor brilliant, she nevertheless became one of the most talked-about women of her generation, and she inspired such deep love and adoration in Edwar... read more

Written by acclaimed biographer A. N. Wilson, Hitler is a short, sharp, gripping account of one of the twentieth century's most notorious figures

In 1941, Theo Coster was a student at the Amsterdam Jewish Lyceum, one in a class of 28 Jewish children that the Nazis had segregated from the rest of the Dutch population. Among Theo's fellow students was a young Anne Frank, whose diary would later become one of the most important documents of the Holocaust. In this remarkable group portrait, Coster and five of his fellow classmates gather their personal stories and memories of Anne. The accounts collected here do not just help us to rediscover Anne Frank. They also stand on their... read more

There never was a Churchill from John of Marlborough down who had either morals or principles', so said Gladstone. From the First Duke of Marlborough - soldier of genius, restless empire-builder and cuckolder of Charles II - onwards, the Churchills have been politicians, gamblers and profligates, heroes and womanisers. The Churchills is a richly layered portrait of an extraordinary set of men and women - grandly ambitious, regularly impecunious, impulsive, arrogant and brave. And towering above the Churchill clan is the figure of W... read more

Queen Anne was one of Britain's most remarkable monarchs. With a personal life riven by passion, illness and intrigue -- she presided over some of the most momentous events in British history. Like books by Antonia Fraser or Amanda Foreman and based on years of original research, Queen Anne is historical biography at its best.

In his highly acclaimed style, historian Johnson masterfully disentangles centuries of scarce sources to offer a riveting account of a homely but charismatic middle-class man living in Athens in the Fifth Century B.C., and how what this man thought still shapes the way people decide how to act, and how the notion of body and soul is understood.

A brilliant group biography in the mould of Stella Tillyard's Aristocrats and Katie Hickman's Daughters of Britannia, now published in paperback The lives and legends of four women, all representatives of the golden age of the French courtesan. In the reign of Emperor Napoleon III the opulent and pampered demi-mode became almost indistinguishable from the haut-monde, with mythical reputations growing up around its most glittering and favoured celebrities. Marie Duplessis became the prototype of the virtuous courtesan when Alexand... read more

One January morning in 1734, cloth merchant Peter Collinson hurried down to the docks at London's Custom House to collect cargo just arrived from John Bartram in the American colonies. But it was not bales of cotton that awaited him, but plants and seeds. Over the next forty years, Bartram would send hundreds of American species to England, where Collinson was one of a handful of men who would foster a national obsession and change the gardens of Britain forever:Philip Miller, author of the bestselling Gardeners Dictionary; the Swe... read more

Bestselling military historian Richard Holmes delivers an expertly written and exhilarating account of the life of John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough and Britain's finest soldier, who rose from genteel poverty to lead his country to glory, cementing its position as a major player on the European stage and saviour of the Holy Roman Empire. John Churchill is, by any reasonable analysis, Britain's greatest-ever soldier. He mastered strategy, tactics and logistics. His big four battles, Blenheim (which saved the Holy Roman Empire... read more

They have no graves, no markers of ever having existed. The millions of people murdered by the Nazis live on only in memories of the survivors. In his seventy-ninth year, Andor Schwartz was driven to record the lives of his family and friends who perished. Andor takes us back to the world of his childhood in rural Hungary in the years leading up to World War II. His love of nature and country life, his friendships, the harvests, the Jewish festivals, the age-old customs - now lost - are evoked with intense vitality, before dark clo... read more

A wonderful evocation of highly celebrated period of art history from one of the most acclaimed biographers of our time.
From the prize winning author of William Morris comes a new biography of Edward Burne-Jones, the greatest British artist of the second half of the nineteenth century.
The angels on our Christmas cards, the stained glass in our churches, the great paintings in our galleries - Edward Burne-Jones' work is all around us. The most admired British artist of his generation, he was a leading figure with Osca... read more

Sculptor, architect, painter, playwright, and scenographer, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) was the last of the universal artistic geniuses of early modern Italy. This biography leads us through Bernini's feuds and love affairs, scandals and sins.

Offers a personal account of the author's consuming passion for art collection. This title also offers a portrait of an idiosyncratic and personal passion for art - and how his first serious forays into art collecting in the 1930s would turn into a love that ends with the foundation of one of the world's finest museums.

A "New York Times" Notable Book for 2011 We all want to know how to live. But before the good life was reduced to ten easy steps or a prescription from the doctor, philosophers offered arresting answers to the most fundamental questions about who we are and what makes for a life worth living. In "Examined Lives," James Miller returns to this vibrant tradition with short, lively biographies of twelve famous philosophers. Socrates spent his life examining himself and the assumptions of others. His most famous student, Plato, risked... read more

Compelling account of the first 35 years of a magnificent and ruthless monarch. Henry became the unexpected heir to the precarious Tudor throne in 1502, after his elder brother Arthur died. He also inherited both his brother's wardrobe and his wife, the Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon. He became king in April 1509 with many personality traits inherited from his father - the love of magnificence, the rituals of kingship, the excitement of hunting and gambling and the construction of grand new palaces. After those early glory d... read more

An illustrated guide to Charles Dickens and his works. It follows Dickens from early childhood, including his time spent as a child labourer, and looks at how he became the greatest celebrity of his age - and how he still remains recognized as one of England's greatest celebrities, even in the twenty-first century.

These fascinating, never-before-published early diaries of Count Harry Kessler--patron, museum director, publisher, cultural critic, soldier, secret agent, and diplomat--present a sweeping panorama of the arts and politics of Belle epoque Europe, a glittering world poised to be changed irrevocably by the Great War. Kessler's immersion in the new art and literature of Paris, London, and Berlin unfolds in the first part of the diaries. This refined world gives way to vivid descriptions of the horrific fighting on the Eastern and West... read more