Lucy Worsley

"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.

A Biography

Jane Austen at Home

Explores the British fascination with homicide as the basis for national entertainment, highlighting the murderous events which sold papers, caused fear and panic, and sparked the imaginations of many writers.

From Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock

The Art of the English Murder

Would she ever find a real-life husband? Would she even find a partner to dance with at tonight's ball? She just didn't know. Anna Austen has always been told she must marry rich. Her future depends upon it. While her dear cousin Fanny has a little more choice, she too is under pressure to find a suitor. But how can either girl know what she wants? Is finding love even an option? The only person who seems to have answers is their Aunt Jane. She has never married. In fact, she's perfectly happy, so surely being single can't be such a bad thing? The time will come for each of the Austen girls to become the heroines of their own stories. Will they follow in Jane's footsteps? In this witty, sparkling novel of choices, popular historian LUCY WORSLEY brings alive the delightful life of Jane Austen as you've never seen it before.

The Austen Girls

'A wonderfully fresh, vivid and engaging portrait.' Jane Ridley, author of Bertie: A Life of Edward VII 'Has much of the abundant charm of its author.' Spectator 'The glory of this book is in the details.' The Times 'Worsley's command of the material and elegant writing style make this a must-read.' Publisher's Weekly 'An intimate glimpse.' Daily Mail 'An engaging portrait of the monarch.' i paper 'Provides a unique insight into this inscrutable monarch.' Choice Magazine 'In this lively, light-footed biography, just out in paperback, the popular TV historian Lucy Worsley looks at just 24 days of Victoria's 81-year long life to reveal unexpected sides to the monarch.' BBC History Magazine ******************************* Who was Queen Victoria? A little old lady, potato-like in appearance, dressed in everlasting black? She was also a passionate young princess who loved dancing. And there is also a third Victoria, the brilliant queen, one who invented a new role for the monarchy. Victoria found a way of ruling when people were deeply uncomfortable with having a woman on the throne. Her image as a conventional daughter, wife and widow concealed the reality of a talented, instinctive politician. Her actions, if not her words, reveal that she was tearing up the rules on how to be female. But the price of this was deep personal pain. By looking in detail at twenty-four days of her life, through diaries, letters and more, we meet Queen Victoria up-close and personal. Living with her from hour to hour, we can see and celebrate the contradictions that make up British history's most recognisable woman.

Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow

Queen Victoria

The captivating debut children's novel from popular television historian Lucy Worsley is an exciting and charming glimpse behind the scenes of the Tudor court. I would often wonder about my future husband. A knight? A duke? A stable boy? Of course the last was just a wicked fancy. Eliza Rose Camperdowne is young and headstrong, but she knows her duty well. As the only daughter of a noble family, she must one day marry a man who is very grand and very rich. But Fate has other plans. When Eliza becomes a maid of honour, she's drawn into the thrilling, treacherous court of Henry the Eighth . . . Is her glamorous cousin Katherine Howard a friend or a rival? And can a girl choose her own destiny in a world ruled by men?

Eliza Rose

An 18th-century portrait of the palace most recognized as an official home of several British royal family members focuses on the Hanover family during the reigns of George I and II, describing the intrigue, ostentatious fashions and politicking that marked court life. By the author of Cavalier.

Splendor and Intrigue in the Georgian Court at Kensington Palace

The Courtiers

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 - and more - are answered in this juicy, truly intimate history of the home.Through the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen, Lucy Worsley explores 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.

An Intimate History of the Home

If Walls Could Talk

'You are my sister now, ' Victoria said, quietly and solemnly. 'Never forget it. I love you like a sister, and you are my only friend in all the world.' Miss V. Conroy is good at keeping secrets. She likes to sit as quiet as a mouse, neat and discreet. But when her father sends her to Kensington Palace to become the companion to Princess Victoria, Miss V soon finds that she can no longer remain in the shadows. Miss V's father has devised a strict set of rules for the young princess, which he calls the Kensington System. It governs her behaviour and keeps her locked away from the world. He says it is for the princess's safety, but Victoria herself is convinced that it is to keep her lonely, and unhappy. Torn between loyalty to her father and her growing friendship with the wilful and passionate Victoria, Miss V has a decision to make: to continue in silence, or to speak out. By turns thrilling, dramatic and touching, this is the story of Queen Victoria's childhood as you've never heard it before.

My Name Is Victoria

By turns thrilling, dramatic and touching, this is the story of Henry the Eighth and Catherine of Aragon's divorce as you've never heard it before - from the eyes of their daughter, Princess Mary. More than anything Mary just wants her family to stay together; for her mother and her father - and for her - to all be in the same place at once. But when her father announces that his marriage to her mother was void and by turns that Mary doesn't really count as his child, she realises things will never be as she hoped. Things only get worse when her father marries again. Separated from her mother and forced to work as a servant for her new sister, Mary must dig deep to find the strength to stand up against those who wish to bring her down. Despite what anyone says, she will always be a princess. She has the blood of a princess and she is ready to fight for what is rightfully hers.

Lady Mary

Murder - a dark, shameful deed, the last resort of the desperate or a vile tool of the greedy. And a very strange, very British obsession. This book explores this phenomenon in forensic detail, revisiting notorious crimes like the Ratcliff Highway Murders, which caused a nation-wide panic in the early nineteenth century.

The Story of a National Obsession

A Very British Murder

Agatha Christie

'One brilliant woman writing about another: an irresistible combination.' - Antonia Fraser 'One of the most delightful biographies I have ever read.' - A.N. Wilson 'Reading Worsley is as enjoyable as reading Christie herself.' - Ruth Scurr 'Full of unique insight, eye opening detail, sharp analysis... Gripping.' - Kate Williams 'Read it at one sitting. It's frothy and fast and properly, subtly, furious.' - Annie Gray '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? 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 which had its own rules about what women could and couldn't do. Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of an internationally renowned bestselling 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 realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was - truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.

A Very Elusive Woman

In the eighteenth century, the palace's most elegant assembly room was in fact a bloody battlefield. This was a world of skulduggery, politicking, wigs and beauty-spots, where fans whistled open like flick-knives... Ambitious and talented people flocked to court of George II and Queen Caroline in search of power and prestige, but Kensington Palace was also a gilded cage. Successful courtiers needed 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.

The Secret History of the Georgian Court

Courtiers

Clever, headstrong Elizabeth Rose Camperdowne knows her duty. As the sole heiress to an old but impoverished noble family, Eliza must marry a man of wealth and title it s the only fate for a girl of her standing. But when a surprising turn of events lands her in the royal court as a maid of honor to Anne of Cleves, Eliza is drawn into the dizzying, dangerous orbit of Henry the Eighth and struggles to distinguish friend from foe.

Maid of the King's Court

Un libro imprescindible para todos los amantes de la escritora, donde se muestra su intimidad y entorno familiar, que permite entender mejor las historias y personajes de sus novelas. Un libro muy interesante para todos los amantes de la historia en general ya que es un gran retrato de la sociedad inglesa de fines del siglo XVIII y principios del XIX.

Jane Austen En La Intimidad

A Hidden Life

'Such a brilliant idea! Drilling down into Victoria's diaries Worsley gives us Victoria in all her infinite variety - queen and mother, matriarch and minx...I loved it.' Daisy Goodwin, author, and creator of ITV's Victoria 'The glory of this book is in the details, and the specific moments, that Worsley chooses to single out for mention, and in her cheerful voice as she leads us by the hand to the next window of Victoria's life calendar.' The Times Who was Queen Victoria? A little old lady, potato-like in appearance, dressed in everlasting black? Or a passionate young princess, a romantic heroine with a love of dancing? There is also a third Victoria - a woman who was also a remarkably successful queen, one who invented a new role for the monarchy. She found a way of being a respected sovereign in an age when people were deeply uncomfortable with having a woman on the throne. As well as a queen, Victoria was a daughter, a wife, a mother and a widow, and at each of these steps along life's journey she was expected to conform to what society demanded of a woman. On the face of it, she was deeply conservative. But if you look at her actions rather than her words, she was in fact tearing up the rule book for how to be female. By looking at the detail of twenty-four days of her life, through diaries, letters and more, we can see Victoria up close and personal. Examining her face-to-face, as she lived hour to hour, allows us to see, and to celebrate, the contradictions at the heart of British history's most recognisable woman.

Daughter, Wife, Mother and Widow

The Royal Palaces of London

David Souden

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.

Lucy Worsley

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