A fantastic historical adventure novel set during the events after the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Written by the prolific historical adventure writer G. A. Henty, who has over 120 books to his name.

It is a cold London morning in 1887, and the discovery of a dead man in an abandoned house plunges Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson into a series of eight trying cases that will test the friendship of the two companions and threaten the safety of the country itself. From a staged murder to an impossible suicide, the theft of a national document to the disappearance of an entire family, London's foremost consulting detective and his faithful companion must seek out the clues and venture into the very heart of each mystery. All the while a sinister force, lurking amid the busy streets of London, stalks their every case, testing their own mental and physical prowess; ultimately they require the assistance of their closest allies, including Mycroft Holmes and the unsophisticated Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade.Will Holmes and Watson be able to avert the approaching threat that appears to be vengefully heading straight for them?

A fantastic collection of eleven short mysteries and poems from prolific English Victorian mystery writer Bernard Capes.

Mrs. Hudson is possibly the most famous landlady in literature. Presiding over the comings and goings at 221B Baker Street, she saw many clients, villains and Baker Street Irregulars during the tenancy of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. This series of columns, thoughts, recipes and memoirs are from a long-running column in the Sherlockian journal Canadian Holmes. In it the author, Wendy Heyman-Marsaw, puts herself in Mrs. Hudson's shoes, up and down the 17 steps, and recounts not only the time and era but the food, dining and eating habits of Victorian England. This book explores the meals Mrs. Hudson would have prepared and served her two famous lodgers, what food they would have had while on rail journeys or eaten at hotels around London or inns around England. You will also learn about Mrs. Hudson herself, her husband and even her views towards women's roles and rights in Victorian times. With many illustrations from the Strand Magazine, readers will get a rare peek inside Victorian life.

Go on a quick visit to three different continents. Visit Vancouver and its surrounding areas - go hiking in rain forest twenty minutes from the downtown core, catch the ferry to the Sunshine Coast - you can't get there by road - and tour Victoria the capital of British Columbia. Next travel to Cape Town with its colourful history, encapsulated in the ethnically diverse Bo Kaap district. In this part of Cape Town the coloured houses are even more breathtaking than the views of Table Mountain. Read about the conversations you could have in the market in Cape Town's Greenmarket Square. Finally, journey to the independent countries of the Baltic and discover the splendid churches of the capitals Tallinn and Riga where the architecture is breathtaking and the number of tourists is still relatively few.

2017 is the 130th anniversary of the publication of A Study in Scarlet, the first recorded adventure of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson. What an amazing journey it's been! In addition to the pitifully few sixty tales originally presented in The Canon, published between 1887 and 1927, there have been literally thousands of additional Holmes adventures in the form of books, short stories, radio and television episodes, movies, manuscripts, comics, and fan fiction. And yet, for those who are true friends and admirers of the Master Detective of Baker Street, where it is always 1895 (or a few decades on either side of that!) these stories are not enough. Give us more!In March 1998, legendary radio dramatist, producer, writer, director, and founder of Imagination Theatre listened to this request and broadcast the first of an astounding number of Holmes radio shows over their United States network of stations. In the intervening years, 128 original Holmes episodes (and one recently found "e;lost"e; episode"e;) were broadcast before Imagination Theatre closed its doors in early 2017. Additionally, the cast and crew performed their version of the entire Holmes Canon between 2005 and 2016, featuring the same actors as Holmes and Watson, (John Patrick Lowrie and Larry Albert, respectively,) as well as having every script adapted by the same author, M.J. Elliott - something that has never been done before.Astonishingly, this great number of episodes were written by a relatively small group of dramatists. Imagination Theatre's departure from the airwaves left a great void, both in terms of those seeking "e;movies for your mind"e;, but also those wanting new quality stories about the true Sherlock Holmes, set in the correct period, and featuring tales that truthfully represented Holmes and Watson.This book serves both to honor Jim French and his lifetime of achievements, and also Mr. Sherlock Holmes, along with the dramatists, cast, and crew who brought the new adventures to life. Inside this volume, you will find a script by every one of the authors who wrote about Holmes for Imagination Theatre, representing some of the finest new Holmesian storytelling to be found, and honoring the man described by Watson as "e;the best and wisest ... whom I have ever known."e;Featuring fourteen scripts from every writer who contributed to the series run of Imagination Theatre's Sherlock Holmes.

"e;A psychological account of a crime"e; - that's how Fyodor Dostoyevsky described his novel Crime and Punishment, which tells of two horrific axe murders in St. Petersburg. It becomes much more than a mere "e;account,"e; however, when a pair of dead bodies turn up in London's East End, their heads split open by an axe-blade. To Scotland Yard, the crimes are murders to solve. To Sherlock Holmes, they present an intriguing puzzle. But to the literary man, Dr. John H. Watson, they seem a deliberate re-staging of the brutal murders depicted in Dostoyevsky's narrative. If Watson is right, what can be the purpose behind an actual recreation of the fictional killings? Blocking the answer to that question is a mysterious assortment of English and Russian eccentrics, and one can only wonder if the startling revelation at the end will be dramatic enough to set matters straight.

A volume on the nature, ingredients, causes and consequences of human happiness by the father and son team of Anthony and Charles Kenny.

EIIR Queen Elizabeth II, 60 Years a Queen, A Very Peculiar History' uniquely explores the life and times of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as we approach her 2012 Diamond Jubilee. The story that unfolds is one of doughty determination - the story of a young monarch who finds herself thrust into a new world of relentless public exposure, whose own family turns out to be as frail as everyone else's, but who somehow, for a full 60 years and counting, manages to steer the institution through the choppy waters intact. David Arscott provides an eccentric account of the trials and tribulations that have beset the Queen's reign, from the glamour of her coronation, through the gloom of her 'annus horribilis' to the impending dawn of her Diamond Jubilee.

When war broke out in 1939, few knew that they would soon be fighting to survive, let alone how or when it would end. 'Rations: A Very Peculiar History' looks at the measures the British government took to ensure the wellbeing of its people during wartime, and how the British public dealt with it. With some stealing, some hoarding, but most just trying to get by, it was one of the bleakest periods in British history. But there's a reason they called it 'the Blitz spirit' - this title features amazing tales of camaraderie and good humour in the face of bombs and hunger. Featuring incredible food-and-energy-saving recipes used at the time, along with quotes from survivors, 'Rations: A Very Peculiar History' will transport you back to a time when even Buckingham Palace and the Ritz hotel weren't above swapping a bit of venison for a bit of lobster.

Dragged from the deepest, darkest depths of the 'Very Peculiar History' vaults, this book collects tales of terror, morbid myths and frightening facts that will chill you witless. Introduced by everyone's favourite bloodsucker, Count Dracula, 'Vampires: A Very Peculiar History' features the origin of vampire-like creatures and a biological and mythological look at human blood (including the best places to bite if you were a vampire!) alongside tales of the real-life vampires that may have inspired the first vampire stories. It includes advice on how to spot a vampire as well as how to become one! Even vampires of film, graphic novel and manga get a taste of the action! Don't be scared, be prepared...with 'Vampires, A Very Peculiar History'!

This volume examines historical and contemporary engagements of anarchism and literary production. Anarchists have used literary production to express opposition to values and relations characterizing advanced capitalist (and socialist) societies while also expressing key aspects of the alternative values and institutions proposed within anarchism. Among favoured themes are anarchist critiques of corporatization, prisons and patriarchal relations as well as explorations of developing anarchist perspectives on revolution, ecology, polysexuality and mutual aid. A key component of anarchist perspectives is the belief that means and ends must correspond. Thus in anarchist literature as in anarchist politics, a radical approach to form is as important as content. Anarchist literature joins other critical approaches to creative production in attempting to break down divisions between readers and writer, audience and artist, encouraging all to become active participants in the creative process.

Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) made his reputation as a political philosopher, but for a long time it seemed as if he had little interest in politics before 1945. His major pre-war work, Experience and its Modes (1933) was an examination of the nature of philosophy and its relation to other forms of thought that made almost no mention of politics. However, it has become increasingly clear that this initial judgment was misleading. A posthumous collection of early essays, Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life (1993), proved that political philosophy was a lifelong concern. Nevertheless, the belief that Oakeshott was relatively uninterested in politics, at least in the 1920s, has persisted. This volume dispels that notion for good. It contains two previously unpublished works, a manuscript entitled 'A Discussion of some Matters preliminary to the Study of Political Philosophy', and the first version of a course of lectures on 'The Philosophical Approach to Politics' that Oakeshott gave between 1928 and 1930. These works establish that politics was a central concern in the first decade of his intellectual career, and show beyond any doubt that the ideas of Experience and its Modes actually grew out of Oakeshott's prior philosophical interest in politics.

James Shirley was born in London in September 1596. His education was through a collection of England's finest establishments: Merchant Taylors' School, London, St John's College, Oxford, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in approximately 1618. He first published in 1618, a poem entitled Echo, or the Unfortunate Lovers. As with many artists of this period full details of his life and career are not recorded. Sources say that after graduating he became "e;a minister of God's word in or near St Albans."e; A conversion to the Catholic faith enabled him to become master of St Albans School from 1623-25. He wrote his first play, Love Tricks, or the School of Complement, which was licensed on February 10th, 1625. From the given date it would seem he wrote this whilst at St Albans but, after its production, he moved to London and to live in Gray's Inn. For the next two decades, he would write prolifically and with great quality, across a spectrum of thirty plays; through tragedies and comedies to tragicomedies as well as several books of poetry. Unfortunately, his talents were left to wither when Parliament passed the Puritan edict in 1642, forbidding all stage plays and closing the theatres. Most of his early plays were performed by Queen Henrietta's Men, the acting company for which Shirley was engaged as house dramatist. Shirley's sympathies lay with the King in battles with Parliament and he received marks of special favor from the Queen. He made a bitter attack on William Prynne, who had attacked the stage in Histriomastix, and, when in 1634 a special masque was presented at Whitehall by the gentlemen of the Inns of Court as a practical reply to Prynne, Shirley wrote the text-The Triumph of Peace. Shirley spent the years 1636 to 1640 in Ireland, under the patronage of the Earl of Kildare. Several of his plays were produced by his friend John Ogilby in Dublin in the first ever constructed Irish theatre; The Werburgh Street Theatre. During his years in Dublin he wrote The Doubtful Heir, The Royal Master, The Constant Maid, and St. Patrick for Ireland. In his absence from London, Queen Henrietta's Men sold off a dozen of his plays to the stationers, who naturally, enough published them. When Shirley returned to London in 1640, he finished with the Queen Henrietta's company and his final plays in London were acted by the King's Men. On the outbreak of the English Civil War Shirley served with the Earl of Newcastle. However when the King's fortunes began to decline he returned to London. There his friend Thomas Stanley gave him help and thereafter Shirley supported himself in the main by teaching and publishing some educational works under the Commonwealth. In addition to these he published during the period of dramatic eclipse four small volumes of poems and plays, in 1646, 1653, 1655, and 1659. It is said that he was "e;a drudge"e; for John Ogilby in his translations of Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey, and survived into the reign of Charles II, but, though some of his comedies were revived, his days as a playwright were over. His death, at age seventy, along with that of his wife, in 1666, is described as one of fright and exposure due to the Great Fire of London which had raged through parts of London from September 2nd to the 5th. He was buried at St Giles in the Fields, in London, on October 29th, 1666.

John Dryden was born on August 9th, 1631 in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire. As a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar. Dryden obtained his BA in 1654, graduating top of the list for Trinity College, Cambridge that year. Returning to London during The Protectorate, Dryden now obtained work with Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden was in the company of the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. The setting was to be a sea change in English history. From Republic to Monarchy and from one set of lauded poets to what would soon become the Age of Dryden. The start began later that year when Dryden published the first of his great poems, Heroic Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death. With the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 Dryden celebrated in verse with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. With the re-opening of the theatres after the Puritan ban, Dryden began to also write plays. His first play, The Wild Gallant, appeared in 1663 but was not successful. From 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company, in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and '70s, theatrical writing was his main source of income. In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. It established him as the pre-eminent poet of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and then historiographer royal (1670). This was truly the Age of Dryden, he was the foremost English Literary figure in Poetry, Plays, translations and other forms. In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by subscription. It was a national event. John Dryden died on May 12th, 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later.

Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius. Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate. Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win "e;crowns of victory"e;, Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and schylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow. His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after schylus had written his classic The Oristria. Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal. Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of schylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times. Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "e;the noblest of her songs of praise"e;. His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: "e;A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones."e; Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city. Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection. At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.

The English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I of England (James VI of Scotland, 1567-1625; in England he reigned from 1603).Beaumont & Fletcher began to collaborate as writers soon after they met. After notable failures of their solo works their first joint effort, Philaster, was a success and tragicomedy was the genre they explored and built upon. There would be many further successes to follow.There is an account that at the time the two men shared everything. They lived together in a house on the Bankside in Southwark, "e;they also lived together in Bankside, sharing clothes and having one wench in the house between them."e; Or as another account puts it "e;sharing everything in the closest intimacy."e;Whatever the truth of this they were now recognised as perhaps the best writing team of their generation, so much so, that their joint names was applied to all the works in which either, or both, had a pen including those with Philip Massinger, James Shirley and Nathan Field.The first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 contained 35 plays; 53 plays were included in the second folio in 1679. Other works bring the total plays in the canon to about 55. However there appears here to have been some duplicity on the account of the publishers who seemed to attribute so many to the team. It is now thought that the work between solely by Beaumont and Fletcher amounts to approximately 15 plays, though of course further works by them were re-worked by others and the originals lost.After Beaumont's early death in 1616 Fletcher continued to write and, at his height was, by many standards, the equal of Shakespeare in popularity until his own death in 1625.

The reality is that little is known of Aristophanes actual life but eleven of his forty plays survive intact and upon those rest his deserved reputation as the Father of Comedy or, The Prince of Ancient Comedy. Accounts agree that he was born sometime between 456BC and 446 BC. Many cities claim the honor of his birthplace and the most probable story makes him the son of Philippus of gina, and therefore only an adopted citizen of Athens, a distinction which, at times could be cruel, though he was raised and educated in Athens. His plays are said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more realistically than any other author could. Intellectually his powers of ridicule were feared by his influential contemporaries; Plato himself singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as a slander that contributed to the trial and condemning to death of Socrates and although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher his carried the most weight. His now lost play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. Aristophanes seems to have taken this criticism to heart and thereafter caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights. His life and playwriting years were undoubtedly long though again accounts as to the year of his death vary quite widely. What can be certain is that his legacy of surviving plays is in effect both a treasured legacy but also in itself the only surviving texts of Ancient Greek comedy.

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, was born in Kirriemuir, Angus the ninth of ten children on May 9th, 1860. From early formative experiences, Barrie knew that he wished to follow a career as an author. His family wished otherwise and sought to persuade him to choose a profession, such as the ministry. The compromise was that he would attend university to study literature at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with an M.A. on April 21st, 1882. His first job was as a staff journalist for the Nottingham Journal. The London editor of the St. James's Gazette "e;liked that Scotch thing"e; in Barrie's short stories about his mother's early life. They also served as the basis for his first novels. Barrie though was increasingly drawn to working in the theatre. His first play, a biography of Richard Savage, was only performed once and critically panned. Undaunted he immediately followed this with Ibsen's Ghost in 1891, a parody of Ibsen's plays Hedda Gabler and Ghosts. Barrie's third play, Walker, London, in 1892 led to an introduction to his future wife, a young actress by the name of Mary Ansell. The two became friends, and she helped his family to care for him when he fell very ill in 1893 and 1894. Barrie proposed and they were married, in Kirriemuir, on July 9th, 1894. By some accounts the relationship was unconsummated and indeed the couple had no children. The story of Peter Pan had begun to formulate when Barrie became acquainted with the Llewelyn Davis family in 1897, meeting George, Jack and baby Peter with their nanny in London's Kensington Gardens. In 1901 and 1902, Barrie had back-to-back theatre successes with Quality Street and The Admirable Crichton. The character of "e;Peter Pan"e; first appeared in The Little White Bird in 1902. This most famous and enduring of his works; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on December 27th, 1904. Peter Pan would overshadow everything written during his career. He continued to write for the rest of his life contributing many other fine and important works. Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, died of pneumonia on June 19th,1937 and was buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings.

John Griffith "e;Jack"e; London was born John Griffith Chaney on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco. His father, William Chaney, was living with his mother Flora Wellman when she became pregnant. Chaney insisted she have an abortion. Flora's response was to turn a gun on herself. Although her wounds were not severe the trauma made her temporarily deranged. In late 1876 his mother married John London and the young child was brought to live with them as they moved around the Bay area, eventually settling in Oakland where Jack completed grade school. Jack also worked hard at several jobs, sometimes 12-18 hours a day, but his dream was university. He was lent money for that and after intense studying enrolled in the summer of 1896 at the University of California in Berkeley. In 1897, at 21 , Jack searched out newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and the name of his biological father. He wrote to William Chaney, then living in Chicago. Chaney said he could not be London's father because he was impotent; and casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men. Jack, devastated by the response, quit Berkeley and went to the Klondike. Though equally because of his continuing dire finances Jack might have taken that as the excuse he needed to leave. In the Klondike Jack began to gather material for his writing but also accumulated many health problems, including scurvy, hip and leg problems many of which he then carried for life. By the late 1890's Jack was regularly publishing short stories and by the turn of the century full blown novels. By 1904 Jack had married, fathered two children and was now in the process of divorcing. A stint as a reporter on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 was equal amounts trouble and experience. But that experience was always put to good use in a remarkable output of work. Twelve years later Jack had amassed a wealth of writings many of which remain world classics. He had a reputation as a social activist and a tireless friend of the workers. And yet on November 22nd 1916 Jack London died in a cottage on his ranch at the age of only 40. Here we present Theft.

The life of William Shakespeare, arguably the most significant figure in the Western literary canon, is relatively unknown. Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1565, possibly on the 23rd April, St. George's Day, and baptised there on 26th April. Little is known of his education and the first firm facts to his life relate to his marriage, aged 18, to Anne Hathaway, who was 26 and from the nearby village of Shottery. Anne gave birth to their first son six months later. Shakespeare's first play, The Comedy of Errors began a procession of real heavyweights that were to emanate from his pen in a career of just over twenty years in which 37 plays were written and his reputation forever established. This early skill was recognised by many and by 1594 the Lord Chamberlain's Men were performing his works. With the advantage of Shakespeare's progressive writing they rapidly became London's leading company of players, affording him more exposure and, following the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, a royal patent by the new king, James I, at which point they changed their name to the King's Men. By 1598, and despite efforts to pirate his work, Shakespeare's name was well known and had become a selling point in its own right on title pages. No plays are attributed to Shakespeare after 1613, and the last few plays he wrote before this time were in collaboration with other writers, one of whom is likely to be John Fletcher who succeeded him as the house playwright for the King's Men. William Shakespeare died two months later on April 23rd, 1616, survived by his wife, two daughters and a legacy of writing that none have since yet eclipsed.