By reading the work of the British modernists - Dorothy Richardson, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Mary Butts and Virginia Woolf - through the lens of material culture, this text argues that women's imaginative work is inseparable from their ambivalent, complicated relation to Britain's imperial history.

In Regency England, a woman risks scandal, disgrace, even her own life for a forbidden passion in this “sure-to-please saga” (Kirkus Reviews). From the moment the handsome, raffish stranger with the gold earring throws her a kiss, Jessica Frenshaw is enchanted. Rumored to be a half-Spanish wanderer who can predict the future, Romany Jake is unjustly put on trial for murder. After the verdict banishes him from England, Jessica despairs of ever seeing him again. But one fateful day, Jake Cadorson returns to reclaim what he has lost—including the woman who saved him from the gallows. From the ballrooms and lavish estates of Regency England through the bitter bloodshed of the Napoleonic Wars, Return of the Gypsy weaves a spellbinding tale of blackmail, murder, and illicit passion as a woman risks everything for the man she loves—a man who isn’t what he seems.

"The Daughters of England" from Sarah Stickney Ellis. English author (1799-1872).

Sixteenth-century England was scarcely a paradise for anyone by modern standards. Yet despite huge obstacles, many sixteenth-century women achieved personal success and even personal wealth. This is a resource for all interested in this time-period.

DIVWhile the world teeters on the brink of World War I, a young woman’s indiscretion leads to a seething viper’s nest of blackmail and murder /divDIV In 1912, with war looming on the horizon, thirteen-year-old Lucinda Greenham is sent to an exclusive boarding school in Belgium. Her joy in sharing this adventure with her best friend, Annabelinda, is cut short when Annabelinda has a clandestine affair leading to pregnancy. Annabelinda’s family arranges a “rest cure” and when the girl returns to school, she seems to have forgotten the incident. Then, in the wake of Germany’s invasion of Belgium, Lucinda and Annabelinda are forced to flee across Europe and find a welcome savior in the dashing Major Marcus Merrivale./divDIV /divDIVSafely back in England, Lucinda vows to keep her friend’s secret. But someone in the household has uncovered the truth about Annabelinda and the lively baby called Edward. Now Lucinda, who has lost her heart to a decorated soldier, is faced with keeping another secret. As a blackmail plot erupts in murder, and war eradicates a way of life forever, Lucinda discovers that there is a time for love . . . and a time for silence./div

In Tudor England, a dark mystery threatens a marriage. “Carr is a master at creating and sustaining suspense . . . a story that will draw you in” (Regan Romance Review). Linnet Pennlyon, proud daughter of a sea captain, finds herself in a vicious trap: Pregnancy has forced her to marry the cunning Squire Colum Casvellyn. Once their baby is born, she devotes herself to their son. Yet, little by little, against her will, Linnet finds herself drawn to her passionate, mercurial husband. Dark secrets lurk in their castle: The squire’s first wife died amid rumors of foul play. When a beautiful stranger washes up on the shore, Linnet suddenly finds she’s no longer in control of her family—or her life. It falls to Linnet’s daughter, Tamsyn, to uncover the truth about a long-ago night . . . and put to rest the rumors about her beloved mother. Her discovery sets in motion an unstoppable chain of events that will reverberate for decades to come.

Winner of the 2004 Book Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and the 2003 Roland H. Bainton Prize for Literature from the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference. Our common definition of literacy is the ability to read and write in one language. But as Margaret Ferguson reveals in Dido's Daughters, this description is inadequate, because it fails to help us understand heated conflicts over literacy during the emergence of print culture. The fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, she shows, were a contentious era of transition from Latin and other clerical modes of literacy toward more vernacular forms of speech and writing. Fegurson's aim in this long-awaited work is twofold: to show that what counted as more valuable among these competing literacies had much to do with notions of gender, and to demonstrate how debates about female literacy were critical to the emergence of imperial nations. Looking at writers whom she dubs the figurative daughters of the mythological figure Dido—builder of an empire that threatened to rival Rome—Ferguson traces debates about literacy and empire in the works of Marguerite de Navarre, Christine de Pizan, Elizabeth Cary, and Aphra Behn, as well as male writers such as Shakespeare, Rabelais, and Wyatt. The result is a study that sheds new light on the crucial roles that gender and women played in the modernization of England and France.

A crime binds a man and woman together in this “entertaining” novel ranging from Victorian England to Australia by a New York Times–bestselling author (Publishers Weekly). Young Angelet is fascinated by the haunting rumors surrounding the Pool of St. Branok—superstitious tales of its cursed, bottomless waters. The innocent Cornish girl shares the ghostly story with Benedict Lansdon, the handsome, illegitimate grandson of a family friend, and promises to show him the spot. But tragedy strikes when they meet at the pool, and Angelet and Ben become complicit in a crime that could send Ben to the gallows. Ben returns to Australia, but the pair feels bound by their terrible secret. After a whirlwind season in London, Angelet marries Gervaise Mandeville, a charming rogue with a weakness for gambling. As the casualties from the Crimean War mount, Gervaise decides to try his luck in the Australian gold rush. Angelet travels across the world with him, only to once again be ensnared in a fatal act of violence. Alone in the outback, Angelet faces her own day of reckoning from a long-ago crime—and gets a second chance at love.

DIVThe riveting Cornwall saga continues with the story of Lucie Lansdon, the sole witness to a horrifying crime much too close to home . . . /divDIV After her father is murdered, Lucie Lansdon’s eyewitness testimony sends a fanatical Irish terrorist to the gallows. Fate claims another victim when Lucie receives news that her fiancé has died in Africa. Reeling from the deaths of the two men she loved most, and convinced that her life is cursed, Lucie finally finds happiness when she marries the gentle Roland Fitzgerald./divDIV /divDIVBut her domestic life with Roland and his sister is not all it should be. Someone is watching—and waiting to carry out a cunningly orchestrated plan of retribution. As Lucie’s life is threatened and she begins to doubt her sanity, she’s visited by someone she believed lost to her forever. On the verge of uncovering the truth about a long-ago night, she places her trust in the wrong person./div