Honest! I’m not doing anymore this year. I’ve been ill, there’s been a lot of reading time. I’ve been making progress through my Pen & Sword collection.
Published By: Pen & Sword Publication Date: 7th November 2018 Format: Hardback ISBN: 9781526731654 Price: £15.99 Link
Blurb
Pirates and Privateers tells the fascinating story of the buccaneers who were the scourge of merchants in the 18th Century. It examines their lifestyle, looking at how the sinking of the Spanish treasure fleet in a storm off the coast of Florida led to a pirate’s gold rush; how the King’s Pardon was a desperate gamble – which paid off – and considers the role of individual island governors, such as Woodes Rogers in the Bahamas, in bringing piracy under control.
The book also looks at how piracy has been a popular topic in print, plays, songs and now films, making thieves and murderers into swash-buckling heroes. It also considers the whole question of buried treasure – and gives a lively account of many of the pirates who dominated the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy.
My Review
A very good introduction to the subject, concentrating on the era known as the ‘Golden Age’ of piracy, and while the author notes that piracy is still with us and is the result of systemic inequalities, he doesn’t discuss modern piracy – that is outside the scope of the book. The chapters cover the general history of piracy, biographies of various pirates and colonial officials who sought to deal with them, and the ‘pirate’ sub-genre of crime literature and it’s later developments in novels and other popular culture such as plays and films.
The book was very easy to read, the author writes sympathetically but is realistic about the nature of piracy – not heroes but thieves, rapists and murderers – and explores the myths surrounding pirates and their treasures with a keen eye for poppycock. The book explores only a tiny fragment of the subject, but it is a good starting place for further research.
BPublished By: Pen & Sword Publication Date: 19th November 2018 Format: Hardback ISBN: 9781473872516 Price: £15.99 Link
Blurb
From Windsor to Weymouth, the shadow of scandal was never too far from the walls of the House of Hanover. Did a fearsome duke really commit murder or a royal mistress sell commissions to the highest bidders, and what was the truth behind George III’s supposed secret marriage to a pretty Quaker?
With everything from illegitimate children to illegal marriages, dead valets and equerries sneaking about the palace by candlelight, these eyebrow-raising tales from the reign of George III prove that the highest of births is no guarantee of good behaviour. Prepare to meet some shocking ladies, some shameless gentlemen and some politicians who really should know better.
So tighten your stays, hoist up your breeches and prepare for a gallop through some of the most shocking royal scandals from the court of George III’s court. You’ll never look at a king in the same way again…
My Review
What a family! I’d be so embarrassed if I was directly related to them. An overbearing matriarch and patriarch, daughters confined to the palace, sons and brothers making ‘unsuitable’ marriages, girlfriends and illegitimate children here there and everywhere, the odd murder. Sounds like most families. Except this one had money and power to back up their behaviour and silence people. And they were the centre of press focus for decades. And what fun the press had with them…
I sat and read this book yesterday after I’d finished reading about pirates. Sometimes a bit of gossip is fun, especially when those concerned have been dead for two centuries. It was fun, amusing. Curzon’s jaunty writing style lends itself to the subject and it’s obvious that the eighteenth century is her passion. She writes sympathetically and makes evenhanded judgements on the truth or otherwise of the rumours and scandal. She uses contemporary sources, later literature and current scholarship to provide a rounded picture of events and the people involved.
This book is a an accessible, fun, introduction to the period and people of George III’s court.
Published By: Allison & Busby Publication Date: 18th October 2018 Format: Paperback I.S.B.N.: 9780749021696 Price: £8.99
Blurb
December 1860. The morning shift at Swindon Locomotive Works is about to begin and an army of men is pouring out of the nearby terraced houses built by the GWR. Frank Rodman should have been among them, but he is destined for the grave sooner than he might have expected, or he will be, once his missing head is found.
But Christmas is fast approaching, and the last thing Inspector Colbeck needs is a complex case, mired in contradictions. As he wrestles with one crime, he is alarmed to hear of another – the abduction of Superintendent Tallis. Colbeck and Leeming find themselves in a hectic race to solve a brutal murder before rushing off to Kent in a bid to save the superintendent’s life.
Published by: Pen & Sword Publication Date: 3rd July 2018 Format: Paperback I.S.B.N.: 9781526702746 Price: £12.99
Blurb
This book tells the true stories of three genteel women who were born, raised, lived and died within the world of England’s Country Houses. This is not the story of ‘seen and not heard’ women, these are incredible women who endured tremendous tragedy and worked alongside their husbands to create a legacy that we are still benefitting from today.
Harriet Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville was the second born child of the infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire who married her aunt’s lover, raised his illegitimate children and reigned supreme as Ambassadress over the Parisian elite.
Lady Mary Isham lived at Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire with her family where, despite great tragedy, she was responsible for developing a house and estate whilst her husband remained ‘the silent Baronet’.
Elizabeth Manners, Duchess of Rutland hailed from Castle Howard and used her upbringing to design and build a Castle and gardens at Belvoir suitable for a Duke and Duchess that inspired a generation of country house interiors.
These women were expected simply to produce children, to be active members of society, to give handsomely to charity and to look the part. What these three remarkable women did instead is develop vast estates, oversee architectural changes, succeed in business, take a keen role in politics as well as successfully managing all the expectations of an aristocratic lady.
Published by: Pen & Sword ISBN:9781473893153 Published: 19th November 2018
Price: £19.99
Format: Hardback
Blurb
When the thirteen year old Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York, married King James IV of Scotland in a magnificent proxy ceremony held at Richmond Palace in January 1503, no one could have guessed that this pretty, redheaded princess would go on to have a marital career as dramatic and chequered as that of her younger brother Henry VIII.
Left widowed at the age of just twenty three after her husband was killed by her brother’s army at the battle of Flodden, Margaret was made Regent for her young son and was temporarily the most powerful woman in Scotland – until she fell in love with the wrong man, lost everything and was forced to flee the country. In a life that foreshadowed that of her tragic, fascinating granddaughter Mary Queen of Scots, Margaret hurtled from one disaster to the next and ended her life abandoned by virtually everyone: a victim both of her own poor life choices and of the simmering hostility between her son, James V and her brother, Henry VIII.
My Review
Margaret Tudor, the eldest daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Ever heard of her?
As a child she lived in luxury in the royal nursery with Prince Henry and Princess Mary. There were others but they died young, and Prince Arthur had his own household elsewhere. At the age of 13, after losing her brother Prince Arthur, her mother and then her grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Princess Margaret married King James IV of Scotland, who was 29.
That’s about the time her life got complicated. Poor lass, her first husband slept around on her, her second and third husbands were abusive theives, her brother was a dick to her, she was separated from her daughter, and people who were supposed to support her didn’t. She wasn’t the most intelligent or educated woman and didn’t really care for politics, but she did her best when she was dropped in the muck, to help her son on to the throne and keep him there. She tried to act as peace maker between her husband, and then her son, and her brother, however the distrust between monarchs put paid to all her efforts.
This is a sympathetic and easy to read biography of a rather unfairly obscure but important woman in a formative time in early modern Europe.
Graham Morgan has an MBE for services to mental health, and helped to write the Scottish Mental Health (2003) Care and Treatment Act. This is the Act under which he is now detained.
Graham’s story addresses key issues around mental illness, a topic which is very much in the public sphere at the moment. However, it addresses mental illness from a perspective that is not heard frequently: that of those whose illness is so severe that they are subject to the Mental Health Act.
Graham’s is a positive story rooted in the natural world that Graham values greatly, which shows that, even with considerable barriers, people can work and lead responsible and independent lives; albeit with support from friends and mental health professionals. Graham does not gloss over or glamorise mental illness, instead he tries to show, despite the devastating impact mental illness can have both on those with the illness and those that are close to them, that people can live full and positive lives. A final chapter, bringing the reader up to date some years after Graham has been detained again, shows him living a fulfilling and productive life with his new family, coping with the symptoms that he still struggles to accept are an illness, and preparing to address the United Nations later in the year in his new role working with the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland.
Scampy Doodle is a happy go lucky black dog who has a strong nose for adventure. It’s Christmas Eve and Scampy Doodle is fast asleep when he is woken by a strange noise coming from the chimney. Discover what happens when he goes to investigate and gets the greatest surprise of his life!
Jane Bates has left Highbury to become the companion of the invalid widow Mrs Sealy in Brighton. Life in the new, fashionable seasideresort is exciting indeed. A wide circle of interesting acquaintance and a rich tapestry of new experiences – balls at the Assembly rooms, carriage rides and promenades on the Steyne – make her new life all Jane had hoped for.
While Jane’s sister Hetty can be a tiresome
conversationalist she proves to be a surprisingly good correspondent and Jane
is kept minutely up-to-date with developments in Highbury, particularly the
tragic news from Donwell Abbey.
When handsome Lieutenant Weston returns to Brighton Jane expects their attachment to pick up where it left off in Highbury the previous Christmas, but the determined Miss Louisa Churchill, newly arrived with her brother and sister-in-law from Enscombe in Yorkshire, seems to have a different plan in mind.
In the eighty years between 1787 and 1868 more than 160,000 men, women and children convicted of everything from picking pockets to murder were sentenced to be transported ‘beyond the seas’. These convicts were destined to serve out their sentences in the empire’s most remote colony: Australia. Through vivid real-life case studies and famous tales of the exceptional and extraordinary, Convicts in the Colonies narrates the history of convict transportation to Australia – from the first to the final fleet.
Using the latest original research, Convicts in the Colonies reveals a fascinating century-long history of British convicts unlike any other. Covering everything from crime and sentencing in Britain and the perilous voyage to Australia, to life in each of the three main penal colonies – New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land, and Western Australia – this book charts the lives and experiences of the men and women who crossed the world and underwent one of the most extraordinary punishment in history.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 