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Yolande Duvernay was born in poverty in Paris in 1812. Under the control of a formidable stage mother, she became a celebrated ballerina - the favourite dancer of Princess Victoria - renowned for her beauty, grace, and provocative style on stage. Sold for sexual assignations from puberty, she gave birth to two children and became the mistress of a succession of men. When she became the mistress of Stephens Lyne Stephens, son and heir of the richest commoner in England, her mother was rewarded wi...

By the winter of 1810-11, the armies of Napoleon had overrun most of Spain and Joseph Bonaparte sat on the throne in Madrid. But the Spanish Government had found refuge in the fortress-port of Cadiz and the Spaniards refused to admit that they had been conquered. With a British army under Sir Thomas Graham helping to defend Cadiz, the Spanish cause seemed certain to prevail. But then the Spaniards wanted to throw Graham's force into a reckless battle against the French. If the battle was won, t...

This riveting biography brilliantly explores the short, intense, and passionate life of the country girl from Normandy, who at thirteen fled her brute of a father to go to Paris. Almost overnight she became one of the most admired courtesans of the 1840s—the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas fils’ The Lady of the Camellias and Verdi’s La Traviata. With her aristocratic ways, elegant clothes and signature camellias, Marie was always a subject of fascination at the opera and the boulevard cafés. Her...

This book presents a collection of papers which discuss the origins of the domestic ideal and its effects on activities usually undertaken by women: not only on women's wage work, but also on activities either not defined as work or accorded an ambiguous status. It discusses the formation of the ideology of domesticity, philanthropy and its effects on official policy and on women, landladies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, working-class radical suffragists, and Labour Party and trade...

As the official architects of Napoleon, Charles Percier (1764–1838) and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (1762–1853) designed interiors that responded to the radical ideologies and collective forms of destruction that took place during the French Revolution. The architects visualized new forms of imperial sovereignty by inverting the symbols of monarchy and revolution, constructing meeting rooms resembling military encampments and gilded thrones that replaced the Bourbon lily with Napoleonic bee...

From 1884-1885, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje stayed in Mecca. He became intimately acquainted with the daily life of the Meccans and the thousands of pilgrims from all over the world. This volume deals with social and family life, funeral customs and marriage. It is a unique insight in one the most important places in islamic culture. With a new foreword by Jan Just Witkam

First published in 1986, this book challenges the notion that the miners’ strike of 1984-5 was ‘Scargill’s Strike’. It shows some of the ways in which the strike, though nominally directed from above, was determined from below by multitudinous and often contradictory pressures — the lodge, the village and the home. The focus is essentially logical and gives particular attention to family economy, kin networks and intergenerational solidarity. At the same time it is concerned with the mentality o...

The thrust of these five volumes is contained in their title, London Opera Observ'd. It takes its cue from the numerous texts and volumes which - during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - used the concept of 'spying' or 'observing' by a narrator, or rambler, as a means of establishing a discourse on aspects of London life. The material in this five-volume reset edition examines opera not simply as a genre of performance, but as a wider topic of comment and debate. The stories...

"Elegantly written." - "New York Times Book Review". "Olivier Bernier's richly detailed, engaging, and elegant book offers a splendid refresher course on a pivotal moment in world history - the dawn of the modern era." - Francine du Plessix Gray. "Bernier's style is easeful and informed; he has an acute eye for a colourful, clever, and iconic image." - "Times" (London). "A sweeping, impressively argued portrait of the dawn of the modern age...A distinguished work of popular history." - "Kirkus R...

The Muspratt family form a fascinating dynasty in the history of British commerce and manufacturing. Associated principally with the development of the chemical industry in Liverpool - James Muspratt (1793-1884) was the first person to make alkali on a large scale using the Leblanc Process - the three generations of the family also contributed to wider Victorian and Edwardian culture through their interests in politics, education (founding the Liverpool College of Chemistry in 1848), art, litera...

Sir James Dewar was a major figure in British chemistry for around 40 years. He held the posts of Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge (1875-1923) and Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution (1877-1923) and is remembered principally for his efforts to liquefy hydrogen successfully in the field that would come to be known as cryogenics. His experiments in this field led him to develop the vacuum flask, now more commonly known as the thermos, and in 1898 he was...

The present study is an attempt to place in historical perspective the relationship between early capitalism as exemplified by Great Britain, and the Negro slave trade, Negro slavery and the general colonial trade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is strictly an economic study of the role of Negro slavery and the slave trade in providing the capital which financed the Industrial Revolution in England and of mature industrial capitalism in destroying the slave system.

The remarkable story of the stylistic, cultural, and technical innovations that drove the surge of comics, caricature, and other print media in 19th-century Europe Taking its title from the 1844 visionary graphic novel by J. J. Grandville, this groundbreaking book explores the invention of print media-including comics, caricature, the illustrated press, illustrated books, and popular prints-tracing their development as well as the aesthetic, political, technological, and cultural issues that s...

The Karamazov Correspondence: Letters of Vladimir S. Soloviev represents the first fully annotated and chronologically arranged collection of the Russian philosopher-poet’s most important letters, the vast majority of which have never before been translated into English. Soloviev was widely known for his close association with Fyodor M. Dostoevsky in the final years of the novelist’s life, and these letters reflect many of the qualities and contradictions that also personify the title characters...

First published in 1974, this book describes the religion of the East End, the West End, and the suburbs of London, where each section of society – as well as a variety of immigrant groups – has its own quarters, its own institutions, its distinctive codes of behaviour. While the main focus is on ideas, or unconscious assumptions, rather than institutions, two chapters examine the part played by the churches in the life of Bethnal Green, a very poor district, and of Lewisham, a prosperous suburb...

Religious Minorities and Cultural Diversity in the Dutch Republic explores various aspects of the religious and cultural diversity of the early Dutch Republic and analyses how the different confessional groups established their own identity and how their members interacted with one another in a highly hybrid culture. This volume is to honour Dr. Piet Visser on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Piet Visser has become a leading scholar in the field of the Anabaptist and Mennonite History. Since...

First published in 1975. This study examines one of the popular scientific philosophies of the nineteenth-century. The first part deals with the reception and diffusion of phrenology in Britain, its usefulness to various professions, and its challenge to traditional religion. The second part considers the application of phrenology in two separate social movements: prison reform and national education. This title will be of interest to students of history and philosophy.