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First published in 1822, de Quincey's best-known work is still in print. Though seemingly offering the reader poignant memories, temporal digressions and random anecdotes, the Confessions is a work of great sophistication and rated as one of the most impressive and influential of all autobiographies. He evidences a nervous self-awareness as he scrutinises his own life in an effort to answer that eternal question: Who am I? The horrors of addiction are not a large part of the whole yet in its day it was regarded as a 'lucrative piece of sensational journalism, albeit published in a more intellectually respectable organ' ( London Magazine). Written in an almost romantic, self-reflective neo-classical style it still today reaches out to the reader. -
A wonderful, bawdy, completely unsubtle nonsense of Upstairs, Downstairs and in my lady's chamber - and with more sauce than the average Carry On! The elderly Lord Cockshute - drunk, broke and trouserless - is chasing Mimi the maid who has somehow lost her uniform; gamekeeper Mellons and the parlourmaid have found a new and intriguing way to make daisy chains; Lady Kitty is avoiding the clutches of the revolting Snotty Shuttlecock who would never get into the house - let alone Lady Kitty - but for the money the family owe him; the groom also has designs on Lady Kitty, and is strangely jealous of a black stallion called Ramrod; Hampton, the faithful butler, is desperately trying to conceal the truth about his shameful past; and Viscount Standfast is experimenting with rubber in his laboratory but can't think of a use for his latest unusual invention. With black and white photos from the 1976 film which starred Diana Dors, Jack Wild and Carmen Silvera. -
In this volume: The Crimson Shawl, Florence Bone; The Work Of The S.P.M., Mary Oldfield; The Quicksand, Philippa Francklyn; Summer Voices, Katharine Tynan; The Island Of Adventure, Winifred Darch; The Influence Of Anne and A Horrible Fix, Dorita Fairlie Bruce; The Shadow Of The Past, A.G. Hobart-Hampden; The Bogle, Margaret Baker; The Little Shepherd Of The Stars, Thora Stowell; The Lady In The Yellow Gown, Elinor G. Brent-Dyer; The Tide, Lilian Holmes; The Hat That Was Almost A Tragedy, Agnes Adams; The Bronze Man, Brenda Girvin; Under Canvas, M.C. Carey; Latymer And Barchester, Margaret Chilton; Alone In The Hills, G.E. Scott; The Princess Does Not Dance, M.E.F. Irwin; The King Of Somewhere, S.M. Hills; Two Grey Pigeons, Alice Massie; Then And Now, Vernon Rendall; The Spanish Innkeeper, S.M. Hills. Colour plates and line drawing illustrations. -
First published in 1879, a collection of over 1700 recipes from over 250 old and famous Virginia families was regareded as the essence and mysteries of Old Virginian 'housewifery' and was acclaimed by the President's wife, Mrs Rutherford B. Hayes. There are recipes for literally everything as well as chapters on remedies and behaviour in the 'Sick Room', housecleaning, restoring old clothes and miscellaneous recipes for cosmetics and cures. -
Set in the immediate post Civil War period, two boys, mustered out of the U.S. Military in 1865, construct a singular craft and make a perilous voyage down the mighty Missouri River from Fort Benton to St. Louis. -
An essential guide to Australian rhyming slang drawn from oral sources in and around Sydney. Three of the author's best informants were mates who'd spent some time as guests of Her Majesty in Sydney's Long Bay Jail. Two other prolific sources were a couple of retired shearers. Great as a social document or just for fun - or even as a gift to a 'New Australian' so they know the meaning of such phrases as He did a Harold Holt (bolted, vanished); Here comes the John Hops/Johns (cops, the police); I'm on me Pat Malone; I'm alone; The saucepan lids are home on holidays - The kids are home on holidays plus many more. -
Belle Poitrine, (French for 'pretty bosom') born Mayble Sclumpfert, presents her hilarious, scandalous 'memoirs' of her life as star of the screen, theatre and television, here documented meticulously by Patrick Dennis. All the world's a stage, and she's the most important player on it. At once coy and coercive, she claws her way from Striver's Row to the silver screen. Recalling Belle's career, which ranged from portraying Anne Boleyn in Oh, Henry to roles in both Sodom and its sequel Gomorrah (not to mention the classic Papaya Paradise), Little Me serves up copious quanitites of husbands, couture, and Pink Lady cocktails, with international adventures and a murder trial to boot. Includes plenty of photos of 'Belle's' life and antics. -
A softcover book of black and white photographs in the Katoomba-Leura area, circa 1930s. Locations include views of Megalong Valley; Leura Cascades; Bridal Veil and Weeping Rock; Narrow Neck Peninsula; Katoomba Falls; The Three Sisters; Pantom Falls; Echo Point; Federal Pass and more. There is also a photo credited to Mr H. Phillips, taken in 1909 and which earned the title 'War Clouds' for its astonishing imagery. -
Somerset Maugham - husband, father, bi-sexual; homosexual; playwright, author, thorough-going agnostic and - spy, recruited to the network of British agents who operated against the Berlin Committee during World War 1. Published in 1937, the aim of this book - which, according to the author, makes no attempt to be biographical in the strict sense - is to trace the developments of Maugham's style, technique and choice of subject matter in his novels, plays and short stories. There is also speculation of the the thought and philosophy of which Maugham's work is his eloquent expression. -
A team of scientists aboard the International Space Station on a mission of discovery find a rapidly evolving life-form that caused extinction on Mars. It now threatens the crew and all life on Earth -
Born Juliana Horatia Gatty in Yorkshire, 1841, Mrs Ewing's first successful story was The Brownies. Fifty years later, Sir Robert Baden-Powell adopted the name for the junior branch of the Girl Guide Movement. Even though these stories were written in the Victorian age, when life was very different, they address child behaviour issues that still exist: laziness, self-entitlement and taking things for granted. In this volume: The Brownies; The Land Of Lost Toys; Three Christmas Trees; An Idyll Of The Wood; Christmas Crackers; Amelia And The Dwarfs. With four colour plate illustrations by E.H. Shephard. -
Storm House: Florence Hurd
$55.00A missive of death called young Laura back to Storm House after eight years in Paris. Her proud, beautiful mother had committed suicide by leaping off Cliff's Edge. Laura had been sent away to school when her mother discovered her love for Armand, her stepfather's poor nephew. Now Armand also returned to Storm House, but he had changed into a brooding, secretive person. Her home had become a deadly trap - boulders hurtled out of nowhere, the vicious mastiffs got loose and attacked her and a ghostly vision of evil appeared in her room. Laura knew someone in this strange, decaying mansion wanted her dead and would stop at nothing until her lifeless body was flung from the treacherous cliffs! Gothic horror/romance at its highest.
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Sam Pig lives in a thatched cottage with Tom, Bill and Ann Pig - and also Brock the Badger. Cheerful stories for children from Alison Uttley (1884-1976) who wrote over 100 stories for little people, including a pioneering time-slip novel A Traveller In Time. Illustrations by A.E. Kennedy. -
Collected and published by the "Boy's Own" paper. In this volume: The Sword Tyrfing; How Egil Skallagrimson Saved His Head; Thor's Adventures in Outgarth; The Griffin's Egg; Frithiof The Bold; Thor Loses His Hammer; Helga and Sigrun; The Deeds of Orm Storolfson; The Rival Scalds; Audun and the Bear; Gunnar The Hero; Snowfair; The Burning of Njal; Brand, The Generous; Kari, The Avenger; King Ragnar Lodbrok and Crow, the Goat-Girl; The Weird Valley; Nornagest; The Death of the Niflungs; Frodi's Meal; Half and His Heroes; The Wooing of Frey's Wife; King Rakni's Treasures; The Battle That Never Ends; Rolf Kraki and His Kemps; Nanna's Lovers. -
Horse-loving sixteen year old Dinah Markham helps her Aunt Zoe run a riding school in Brenford, tending and training the ponies and teaching youngsters how to ride. Illustrated by Yvonne Bulgin. -
Young student Axel and Professor Otto Lidenbrock, studying a very old manuscript, discover an ancient pathway into the centre of the Earth. They travel to Iceland, and with the assistance of Hans, a local guide, they find an entrance in Snæfellsjökull, a volcano near Reykjavík. The travel is extensively long, and not without its many perils. Will they be able to make it? And what amazing wonders await hidden within the depths of the Earth? Colour illustrations by T.C. Dugdale. -
The evergreen classic tale of the March sisters begins ten years after Little Men. Plumfield is still presided over by Jo and her husband, Professor Bhaer. Although her 'little men' are now adults, they are still her 'boys'. Restless Dan looks towards new frontiers, but his good heart and efforts to protect a naive man lands him in jail; Emil has gone to sea and will experience shipwreck and sorrow before he sees Plumfield again and Nat, the musician, is ready to go abroad and study music - and he gets some other lessons in life as well. Meg's youngest daughter Josie is stage-struck and Amy worries that her only daughter Beth will make an unwise marriage. Apart from worrying about her 'boys', Jo inadvertently gets into another scrape when her privacy is invaded after one of her books becomes a best-seller. -
Never again will you be short of a good tale at a dinner party. Amuse your friends, embarrass your maiden aunt and shock your stockbroker with stories of the inept, the improbable and the downright impossible. Read about the sanctuary for alcoholic donkeys; the would-be mugger who was rendered unconscious by an octogenarian armed with an onion (and who subsequently ate the evidence for lunch); the battle between a mother and son over the division of a lottery prize; the thief who stole skimpy ladies' clothing from washing lines in the belief he was protecting them from baring too much flesh - and many other true and bizarre stories. -
Subtitle: Being Two Hundred Pictures of the English Inn from the Earliest Times to the Coming of the Railway Hotel. Somewhat misleading - this is not a book of two hundred pictures, but two hundred observations on the history of the English inn and its role in society, travel, festivals, portentous solemnity, a place of repose...The observations come from a fantastic diversity of names: John Bunyan, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, James Boswell, Disraeli, Dickens, Washington Irving, Thomas de Quincey, Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, 'George Eliot', Chaucer, Anthony Trollope and many more. The theme of the observations is as diverse as the contributors: from the 'gallant' in the tavern to the arranging of duels; from gluttons to gourmands; from highwaymen to harridans; from cockroaches to cleanliness and - of course - hosts and hostesses. -
Gracie Fields was well known as a music hall star, singer/comedienne and actress of the 1930s and was voted most popular box office actress in 1937. She was particularly famous for her comedic songs. In this compendium of childrens' stories from the 1950s: Viking Proves Himself, Geoffrey Proust; Good Dog, Tinker! Enid Blyton; Nature Ramble - Spring By Pond And River, Hedgerow Joe; The Saint Piran's Gold, Captain Lawson Smith; The Black Tarn Mystery, Errol Collins; A First-Class Brownie, D.E. Booth; Nature Ramble - Summer To The Sea, Hedgerow Joe; Dreams Go By Contraries, Gunby Hadath; A Piece Of Rope, Edyth Harper; Police Message! T. Holloway; The House Of Candlelight, Robin Rover; Our Dogs, Robert Harding; Nature Ramble - Autumn And Winter, Hedgerow Joe; A Headmaster's Ethics and Channel Conquerors, Robert Harding; In Search Of A Book, Selwyn Gummer. With an introduction by Gracie Fields. -
I lost my own father at 12 yr of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false....The legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semi-literate yet magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is nothing but a monstrous criminal, a thief and a murderer. To his own people, the ordinary Australians, the bushranger is a hero, defying the authority of the English to direct their lives. Indentured by his bootlegger mother to her lover, a famous horse thief, Ned saw his first prison cell at 15 and by the age of 26 had become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over whole towns and defying the law until he was finally captured and hanged. There is almost a sensation of Ned speaking from beyond the grave.
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In the sequel to Little Women, the March girls are beginning to grow up and must make their way in the wide world. Meg is determined to marry her John Brooke, despite dire threats of disinheritance from Aunt March; Jo tries her wings, hopping from the family nest to New York to see if she really has the talent to write; Amy is invited to tour Europe with Aunt March and Beth is slowly recuperating from scarlet fever. New experiences come to the girls: Meg is tempted beyond her proud John's means, and must learn some valuable life lessons; Jo escapes Laurie's courtship, falls into the trap of writing sensation stories, knowing that her family would not approve and meets the best friend she will ever have; Amy gets some bewildering lessons in love and Beth has a secret - and not even her family know what that secret is.It is well-known that Alcott based the character of Jo on herself and while Alcott never married, she allowed her alter-ego to have a little romance. A perennial classic. -
The epic story of the two Biblical cities ruled and ruined by a corrupt, sadistic queen. Lot is commanded by God to take his people to the valley of the Jordan - but the queen is determined to lure him into her web of voluptuous, forbidden temptations. Cover art represents Stewart Granger, Pier Angeli, Stanley Baker and others from the Rank Film production. -
When eleven year-old Drew and his five year-old sister Sammy are orphaned, they fear that they will be separated once they are sent to an orphanage. The children set out for Perth from the small country town of Wyanilling, blithely believing they will find a ship sailing to England and their grandparents. It is a desperate trek through the Australian bush; they are small and the bush is vast and trackless. The police are out in force, searching for them with trackers, rewards are offered and the story builds until politicians become involved in the plight of two small children, wandering the endlessness of the Australian bush alone.
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A series of books encompassing visual images of the decades and the changes the world underwent. These are not just iconic images of famous events and people, but images of everyday people doing everyday things all over the world. The 1930s: Old dreams turned to dust and new dreams turned into nightmares. The nations of Europe marched to war, Strikes and lockouts, 'talkies' and skyscrapers, dictators and New Deals...a unique collection by the world's finest photographers. The 1940s: A decade divided: the world at war, its triumphs and tragedies, victories and victims. Peace, rest, recovery and rebuilding. New hopes and new problems - the tumult of history through the eye of the camera. The 1950s: A world in the icy grip of the Cold War. The Shadow of the Bomb. Little Rock and Notting Hill, the Hungarian Uprising, Suez and Cyprus. The conquest of space - all the triumph and tragedy of a tense and violent age. The 1960s: The Swinging Sixties, a maelstrom of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Pop and the Pill, the Maxi and the Mini, the Stones and the Beatles, Sharpeville, Dallas, Vietnam - the agony and the ecstasy, captured as only the camera can. The 1970s: Terrorism and violence from Beirut to Belfast, from Cyprus to Soweto, from Munich to Mogadishu. The Ayatollah Khomeini, Tricky Dicky Nixon, General Ami, Pol Pot - a young Michale Jackson and an ageing Elvis - explosively revealed by the camera's silent witness. -
Beginning in Victoria's England of the 1880s, the teenaged Peridot learns that Mr Cheke, the chemist, is not her real father. When he dies, she begins to make her own way in the world and searches for traces of her mother, who died not long after she was born. She becomes a paid companion to Geraldine, a temperamental and wealthy young invalid girl who is under the guardianship of her debonair bachelor uncle, Adrian Hope-Winter. When Adrian proposes marriage, Peridot accepts, never dreaming that she will become a star player in a celebrated and scandalous divorce case or that she will become a pioneer for women entering the workforce. Rich with very visible and real characters and an accurate portrayal of life in the Victorian Age. With charming end-chapter illustrations by Philip Gough.
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Kenneth Horne first went on the air in Britain in 1940 when, as a member of the R.A.F. he was instructed by his superior to organise a broadcast. After the war he combined a successful career in industry with radio and television work. Round The Horne was the last radio programme to reach a listening audience of 15 million people. Round the Horne was based on a revue format and contained parody and satire by larger-than-life characters including the camp pair Julian and Sandy, the disreputable eccentric J. Peasmold Gruntfuttock, and the singer of dubious folk songs, Rambling Syd Rumpo, who all became nationally familiar. The cast included Kenneth Williams (Carry On) Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Bill Pertwee (Dad's Army) all of whom had the ability to switch between characters - a talent described by the radio historians Andy Foster and Steve Furst as 'a cast of thousands played by the same four accomplished actors'. Horne's role was that of 'straight man' to the inspired lunacy that was swirling around him. The writers were comedians Barry Took, Marty Feldman and script writers Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke (Man About The House, George And Mildred, Never The Twain). This book contains several selected scripts and the Rambling Syd Rumpo Song Book together with information of the cast and 'characters'. With cartoon illustrations by Hewison.
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