Non-Fiction Books
Tells the compelling story of one of the finest palaces in Europe, situated on the banks of the River Thames south-west of London and a centre of court life in England from 1529 to 1737. Celebrates one of the most visited and intriguing architectural ensembles in Britain, including the palaces original sixteenth-century buildings of Henry VIIIs reign to the late seventeenth-century Baroque additions by Sir Christopher Wren. Includes full coverage of Hampton Courts famous and ever-popular formal gardens, a precious survival of gardening three hundred years ago. Reveals the lifestyles of monarchs, mistresses and courtiers as well as life below stairs. In the same series as Merrells highly popular official illustrated histories of the Tower of London and Kensington Palace
Hampton Court Palace, to the south-west of London, is one of the most famous and magnificent buildings in Britain. The original palace was begun by Cardinal Wolsey, but it soon attracted the attention of his Tudor king and became the centre of royal and political life for the next 200 years. In this new, lavishly illustrated history, the stories of the people who have inhabited the palace over the last five centuries take centre stage. Here Henry VIII and most of his six wives held court, Shakespeare and his players performed, and Charles I escaped arrest after his defeat in the Civil War. William III and Mary II introduced French court etiquette, and Georgian kings and princes argued violently amid the splendid interiors. Alongside the royal residents, there have been equally fascinating characters among courtiers and servants. Queen Victoria opened the palace to the public in the nineteenth century, and since then millions of visitors have been drawn to Hampton Court by its grandeur, its beauty and the many intriguing stories of those great and small who once lived here.
From the Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces in England , a vivid portrait of a seventeenth-century nobleman, his household, and the dramatic decades surrounding the English Civil War. William Cavendish embodied the popular image of a cavalier. He was both courageous and cultured. His passions were architecture, horses, and women. And, along with the whole courtly world of King Charles I and his cavaliers, he was doomed to failure. Cavendish was a master of manège (the art of teaching horses to dance) and obsessed with building beautiful houses in the latest style. He taught Charles I's son to ride, and was the general of the king's army in the north during the Civil War. Famously defeated at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, he went into a long continental exile before returning to England in triumph on the restoration of King Charles II to the throne in 1660. This is the story of one remarkable man, but it is also a rich evocation of what sustained him―his extraordinary household. Lucy Worsley brings to life the complex and fascinating hierarchies among the inhabitants of the great houses of the seventeenth-century, painting a picture of conspiracy, sexual intrigue, clandestine marriage, and gossip. From Ben Jonson and Anthony Van Dyck to long-forgotten servants, Cavalier is a brilliant illumination of the stately home and its inhabitants. The household's cacophony and stink as well as its ceremony and splendor come to life.
Kensington Palace is now most famous as the former home of Diana, Princess of Wales, but the palace's glory days came between 1714 and 1760, during the reigns of George I and II . In the eighteenth century, this palace was a world of skulduggery, intrigue, politicking, etiquette, wigs, and beauty spots, where fans whistled open like switchblades and unusual people were kept as curiosities. Lucy Worsley's The Courtiers charts the trajectory of the fantastically quarrelsome Hanovers and the last great gasp of British court life. Structured around the paintings of courtiers and servants that line the walls of the King's Staircase of Kensington Palace-paintings you can see at the palace today- The Courtiers goes behind closed doors to meet a pushy young painter, a maid of honor with a secret marriage, a vice chamberlain with many vices, a bedchamber woman with a violent husband, two aging royal mistresses, and many more. The result is an indelible portrait of court life leading up to the famous reign of George III , and a feast for both Anglophiles and lovers of history and royalty.
Ambitious and talented people flocked to court in search of power and prestige, but Kensington Palace was also a gilded cage. While its inhabitants were cocooned in comfort and splendour, successful courtiers had level heads and cold hearts; their secrets were never safe. Among them, a Vice Chamberlain with many vices, a Maid of Honour with a secret marriage, a pushy painter, an alcoholic equerry, a Wild Boy, a penniless poet, a dwarf comedian, two mysterious turbaned Turks and any number of discarded royal mistresses. An eye-opening portrait of an enthralling group of royal servants, Courtiers also throws new light on the dramatic life of George II and Queen Caroline: a lover murdered, babies snatched, horrific illnesses and tearful deathbed reconciliations
Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did Samuel Pepys never give his mistresses an orgasm? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two 'dirty centuries'? Why did gas lighting cause Victorian ladies to faint? Why, for centuries, did people fear fruit? All these questions will be answered in this juicy, smelly and truly intimate history of home life. Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen, covering the architectural history of each room, but concentrating on what people actually did in bed, in the bath, at the table, and at the stove. From sauce-stirring to breast-feeding, teeth-cleaning to masturbation, getting dressed to getting married, this book will make you see your home with new eyes.
From Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes to the cosy crimes of the Golden Age, renowned historian Lucy Worsley explores the evolution of the traditional English murder―and reveals why we are so fascinated by this sinister subject. Murder―a dark, shameful deed, the last resort of the desperate or a vile tool of the greedy. And a very strange, very English obsession. But where did this fixation develop? And what does it tell us about ourselves? In The Art of the English Murder , Lucy Worsley explores this phenomenon in forensic detail, revisiting notorious crimes like the Ratcliff Highway Murders, which caused a nationwide panic in the early nineteenth century, and the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, the suburban couple who were hanged after killing Maria’s lover and burying him under their kitchen floor. Our fascination with crimes like these became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels and plays, prose and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism. At a point during the birth of modern England, murder entered our national psyche, and it’s been a part of us ever since. The Art of the English Murder is a unique exploration of the art of crime―and a riveting investigation into the English criminal soul by one of our finest historians. 24 pages of color and B&W illustrations
From Jack the Ripper to the cosy crimes of the Golden Age, renowned historian Lucy Worsley explores the evolution of the typical British murder. A Very British Murder is Lucy Worsley's enthralling exploration of a curious national obsession. Our fascination with 'a good murder' -- from the Ratcliffe Highway Murders at the turn of the nineteenth century to Edith Thompson and Freddie Bywaters, hanged in 1922 for the murder of Edith's husband -- became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels, plays and films, puppet shows and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism. This riveting investigation shows how during the birth of modern Britain murder entered our national psyche -- and has been a part of us ever since.
" Jane Austen at Home offers a fascinating look at Jane Austen's world through the lens of the homes in which she lived and worked throughout her life. The result is a refreshingly unique perspective on Austen and her work and a beautifully nuanced exploration of gender, creativity, and domesticity."--Amanda Foreman, bestselling author of Georgianna, Duchess of Devonshire Take a trip back to Jane Austen's world and the many places she lived as historian Lucy Worsley visits Austen's childhood home, her schools, her holiday accommodations, the houses--both grand and small--of the relations upon whom she was dependent, and the home she shared with her mother and sister towards the end of her life. In places like Steventon Parsonage, Godmersham Park, Chawton House and a small rented house in Winchester, Worsley discovers a Jane Austen very different from the one who famously lived a 'life without incident'. Worsley examines the rooms, spaces and possessions which mattered to her, and the varying ways in which homes are used in her novels as both places of pleasure and as prisons. She shows readers a passionate Jane Austen who fought for her freedom, a woman who had at least five marriage prospects, but--in the end--a woman who refused to settle for anything less than Mr. Darcy. Illustrated with two sections of color plates, Lucy Worsley's Jane Austen at Home is a richly entertaining and illuminating new book about one of the world’s favorite novelists and one of the subjects she returned to over and over in her unforgettable novels: home.
The story of the queen who defied convention and defined an era A passionate princess, an astute and clever queen, and a cunning widow, Victoria played many roles throughout her life. In Queen Victoria: Twenty-Four Days That Changed Her Life, Lucy Worsley introduces her as a woman leading a truly extraordinary life in a unique time period. Queen Victoria simultaneously managed to define a socially conservative vision of Victorian womanhood, while also defying its conventions. Beneath her exterior image of traditional daughter, wife, and widow, she was a strong-willed and masterful politician. Drawing from the vast collection of Victoria’s correspondence and the rich documentation of her life, Worsley recreates twenty-four of the most important days in Victoria's life. Each day gives a glimpse into the identity of this powerful, difficult queen and the contradictions that defined her. Queen Victoria is an intimate introduction to one of Britain’s most iconic rulers as a wife and widow, mother and matriarch, and above all, a woman of her time.
Lucy Worsley presents a 10-part BBC radio exploration of Queen Victoria’s reign via notable encounters. In this revealing series, acclaimed historian and Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces Lucy Worsley explores the reign of Queen Victoria through pivotal figures in her life. We meet 10 key individuals - some well known, others less so - and find out how they influenced the queen, what she thought of them - and what they thought of her. Beginning with Victoria’s prime minister and closest advisor, Lord Melbourne, Worsley goes on to introduce us to the queen’s lady-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings; the Mayor of Newport, Thomas Phillips, governess Louise Lehzen; and two popular American entertainers, Tom Thumb and Buffalo Bill - as well as dresser Frieda Arnold; celebrity nurse Florence Nightingale; royal ‘favourite’ Abdul Karim; and Bishop Randall Davidson. There are also encounters of a different kind, as Lucy Worsley chronicles Victoria’s grief at the death of her husband, Prince Albert, and records Victoria’s own final days and the crowd of people who gathered as Britain’s longest reigning monarch breathed her last. Travelling from Kensington Palace to a luxury hotel on the Côte d’Azur, Worsley talks to eminent writers and historians and draws on letters and diaries including the queen’s own journal to provide fascinating insight into Victoria’s world and those who helped shape it. Accession Day and Kinky Lord M - 1837 With historian Philip Ziegler Poor Lady Flora - 1839 With historian Kathryn Hughes A Wounded Welshman - 9 December 1839 With historians Les James and Rhian E. Jones and curator Oliver Blackmore The Governess - 3 September 1842 With Historic Royal Palaces curator Claudia Williams American Idols - 1844 and 1887 With historian Helen Davies and V&A curator and writer Nicholas Rankin The Dresser - Frieda Arnold, 1854 With Beatrice Behlen, Senior Curator at the Museum of London, and Joanna Marschner, Senior Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, Kensington Palace A Nightingale at Balmoral - Florence Nightingale - September 1856 With historian Mark Bostridge An Encounter with Death - 13 December 1861 With historian Helen Rappaport Mutiny Against an Indian - 1897 With historians Priya Atwal and Shrabani Basu The Sinking of a Great Ship - Bishop Randall Davidson - 25th January 1901 With writer and historian A.N. Wilson Extracts from Queen Victoria’s Journals by Gracious Permission of Her Majesty The Queen.
A new, fascinating account of the life of Agatha Christie from celebrated literary and cultural historian Lucy Worsley. "Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was." Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was “just” an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn’t? Her life is fascinating for its mysteries and its passions and, as Lucy Worsley says, "She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern." She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness. So why—despite all the evidence to the contrary—did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure? She was born in 1890 into a world that had its own rules about what women could and couldn’t do. Lucy Worsley’s biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley’s biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was—truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.