"A convincing account of a watershed epoch, Hattersley's concise yet comprehensive history casts new light on a much-misunderstood era." - Publishers Weekly Edwardian Britain has often been described as a golden sunlit afternoon---personified by its genial and self-indulgent King. In fact, modern Britain was born during the reign of Edward VII, when politics, science, literature, and the arts were turned upside down. In Parliament, the peers were crushed for the first time since Magna Carta. Irish nationalists and suffragettes took politics out on to the streets. Home Rule and Votes for Women were delayed, not precipitated, by the First World War. Great parliamentary stars such as Lloyd George and Winston Churchill typified an era in which personalities dominated the headlines of the new tabloid newspapers. It was the age of Rolls and Royce, Scott and Shackleton, Edward Elgar, Shaw, the Pankhursts, and Mrs. Alice Keppel, whose social life was reported without mention of her relationship with the King. The theater of ideas superseded drawing room dramas. Novelists of genius---from Henry James to D. H. Lawrence---produced a masterpiece each year. A London gallery caused a sensation with an exhibition of "Postimpressionists." Edward Elgar was the first English composer for two hundred years to stand comparison with the continental European masters. In sport, Victorian chivalry was replaced with unashamed professionalism. Man flew for the first time and the motorcar became a common sight on city streets. Physicists examined the structure of the atom and philosophers disputed the traditional definition of virtue. The churches tried, without success, to confront and confound a new skepticism. Explorers sought to prove that men could live, and die, like gods. Drawing on previously unpublished diaries and letters, Roy Hattersley's The Edwardians is a beguiling account of a turbulent and frequently misunderstood period. It is a full and often humorous portrait of an era that he elevates to its rightful place in British history.

What links Margaret Thatcher, Rupert Murdoch, Prince Charles and Mick Jagger? Each have illuminated our Elizabethan age in their own, inimitable, way. Margaret Thatcher - the first female Prime Minister, who dedicated herself with messianic zeal to breaking the mould of post-war British politics Rupert Murdoch - the billionaire media mogul whose empire, built on an ethical void, has polluted the channels of communication from London to Sydney, from New York to New Guinea Prince Charles - the royal dilettante whose erratic exploits shook the throne and put his own succession to it at risk Mick Jagger - lead singer of the Rolling Stones, who embodied the sixties counter-culture of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll yet aspired to be a gentleman and accepted a knighthood at the behest of Tony Blair. The sequel to Brendon's bestselling Eminent Edwardians, Eminent Elizabethans is written in the same witty, ironic and irreverent style and reveals how each one played out a major theme in the new Elizabethan medley. Each portrait vividly and vitally captured through pungent anecdote, piquant quotation and mordant commentary. In short, these brilliant miniatures are as entertaining as they are illuminating. 'Excellent' Guardian 'Entirely refreshing' Daily Mail 'A delight' Daily Express

Eminent Edwardians is a classic biography which will now find, particularly with the renewed interest in Strachey and his work and the recent biographical esays in the same style by Andrew Roberts, a new and large audience.

From the bestselling author of The English comes Empire, Jeremy Paxman's history of the British Empire accompanied by a flagship 5-part BBC TV series, for readers of Simon Schama and Andrew Marr. The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away. In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves. 'Paxman is witty, incisive, acerbic and opinionated . . . In short, he carries the whole thing off with panache bordering on effrontery' Piers Brendon, Sunday Times 'Paxman is a magnificent historian, and Empire may be remembered as his finest work' Independent on Sunday Jeremy Paxman was born in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge. He is an award-winning journalist who spent ten years reporting from overseas, notably for Panorama. He is the author of five books including The English. He is the presenter of Newsnight and University Challenge and has presented BBC documentaries on various subjects including Victorian art and Wilfred Owen.

Edwardian Culture: Beyond the Garden Party is the first truly interdisciplinary collection of essays dealing with culture in Britain c.1895-1914. Bringing together essays on literature, art, politics, religion, architecture, marketing, and imperial history, the study highlights the extent to which the culture and politics of Edwardian period were closely intertwined. The book builds upon recent scholarship that seeks to reclaim the term ‘Edwardian’ from prevalent, restrictive usages by venturing beyond the garden party – and the political rally – to uncover some of the terrain that lies between. The essays in the volume – which deal with both famous writers such as J. M. Barrie and Arnold Bennett, as well as many lesser-known figures – draw attention to the nuanced multiplicity of experience and cultural forms that existed during the period, and highlight the ways in which a closer examination of Edwardian culture complicates our definitions of ‘Victorian’ and ‘Modern’. The book argues that the Edwardian era, rather than constituting a coda to the Victorian period or a languid pause before modernism shook things up, possessed a compelling and creative tenor of its own.

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Australia in March 2004 that aims to reassess the art of the Edwardian period, focusing in particular on the art of Australia. Among Australia's most loved artists are those who went to Europe at the turn of the 19th century to study and live. Many of them stayed abroad for two decades and, like Australian film stars of today, became absorbed onto the world stage. This book places the work of these artists in the context of the British, Irish and American artists with whom they exhibited and associated, and demonstrates their parallel concerns in painterly approach and subject. Opening with paintings by Whistler, which were so influential on the artists of this period, the exhibition focuses on figurative paintings by select British, Irish, American and Australian artists from 1900 to 1914. It also includes George Lambert's King Edward VII (1910), completed shortly before Edward's death and now held in the Commonwealth of Australia Collection. In total the exhibition comprises approximately 140 paintings, sculptures, costumes and fan designs drawn from national and international collections.

The first book-length look at childhood in Edwardian fiction, this book challenges assumptions that the Edwardian period was simply a continuation of the Victorian or the start of the Modern. Exploring both classics and popular fiction, the authors provide a a compelling picture of the Edwardian fictional cult of childhood.

The second novel in the Ravenscar trilogy continues the saga of the Deravenel family, from 1918 through 1975.