Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in…
Biography
Introducing The Leonard Bernstein Letters
Leonard Bernstein was a charismatic and versatile musician – a brilliant conductor who attained international super-star status, and a gifted composer of Broadway musicals…
Russia’s Unlikely Diplomat. Lyric Hughes Hale on Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin’s presidency could be seen as a triumph – one that has turned a bankrupt state into an energy superpower, built a new…
Rachel Adams on Raising Henry
Publishing this month, Rachel Adams‘s Raising Henry: A Memoir of Motherhood, Disability, and Discovery gives a deeply moving and honest account of welcoming a baby born with Down…
‘This diary must never be printed!’: Playwright August Strindberg and The Occult
The Swedish playwright August Strindberg was, amongst other things, a mercurial talent, artist, occultist, husband and father. He is also frequently accused of, amongst…
‘No use being sentimental’: Strindberg & The Modern World
Sue Prideaux is the author of Strindberg: A Life. Playwright, poet, photographer, painter, alchemist and hellraiser, August Strindberg (1849–1912) is principally known, in Arthur Miller’s words, as…
History Catalogue 2013: Retrospectives from Yale University Press
These titles, selected from the Yale University Press 2013 History Catalogue, offer in depth retrospectives of extraordinary events, people and places from across history. The collection…
The First Modern Woman Artist: Paula Modersohn-Becker
Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) was a groundbreaking painter whose often-overlooked place in modernism forces us to reconsider our understanding of art in the early twentieth…
Strindberg, A Life – Sue Prideaux on the playwright’s relationships
The Swedish playwright August Strindberg was, amongst other things, a mercurial talent, artist, occultist, husband and father. He is also frequently accused of, amongst…
Remarkable Lives: A Collection of Extraordinary Biographies from Yale
Remarkable achievements are often the products of remarkable lives. The following collection of recently published and forthcoming books from Yale present a stunning assortment…
Genius and Tragedy: The Life of Alan Turing
History is rife with examples of persecuted scientists—think Rhazes, Galileo, and Servetus, for starters—but it would be a mistake to think that such injustice…
My Backyard Jungle – A Conversation with James Barilla
For James Barilla and his family, the dream of transforming their Columbia, South Carolina backyard into a haven for wildlife evoked images of kids…
‘The Marquess of Queensberry: A Fractured Life’. Author Article by Linda Stratmann
The Marquess of Queensberry is perhaps as famous for destroying one of our greatest literary geniuses as he was for helping establish the rules…
Celebrating David Livingstone, ‘Africa’s first freedom fighter’. An extract from ‘Livingstone’ by Tim Jeal
David Livingstone (1813-1873) is revered as one of history’s greatest explorers and missionaries, the first European to cross Africa, and the first to find…
The Great Agnostic and First American Male Feminist
Susan Jacoby, author of the new biography, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought, here reflects on the significance of Ingersoll as a religious and…