UNITED KINGDOM AUTHOR · HISTORY · BIOGRAPHY
Juliet Barker
Juliet R. V. Barker is an English historian, specializing in the Middle Ages and literary biography. She is the author of a number of well-regarded works on the Brontës, William Wordsworth, and medieval tournaments. From 1983 to 1989 she was the curator and librarian of the Bronte Parsonage Museum. - Wikipedia
THE BEAUTIFUL POSITION of the Mexican capital, Tenochtitlan, could scarcely have been improved upon.
— from Conquest
Most acclaimed
Conquest
In Conquest one of the most distinguished modern historians has written the first major history of the conquest of Mexico since Prescott's classic account, published over 150 years ago. Cortes' conquest of Mexico in 1519-1521 is one of the most famous stories in the world. Macaulay wrote that the way Aztec emperor Montezuma died was one of the two things that every schoolboy knew. The story of the 500 conquistadores landing near Vera Cruz, the subsequent burning of the boats, the march up to the Aztec capital, the extraordinary battles and ruses en route, the welcome by Montezuma, the later quarrels, the Spanish withdrawal, the bloody fighting, and the eventual apocalyptic victory can never fail to excite the imagination. Drawing on newly discovered sources and taking into account information not available to earlier scholars, Hugh Thomas, author of the bestselling The Spanish Civil War and The History of the Cuban Revolution, presents a full and balanced history of one of the most significant events of Western civilization, a subject and an era of continued fascination to millions of readers. Here, in a brilliant and detailed narrative, full of the sound and fury of great events and the clash of empires and personalities, is a book that rivals Prescott's for its sweeping view of history, but is written with a new respect for the civilization and culture that Cortes ruthlessly destroyed. Hugh Thomas' account of the collapse of Montezuma's great Mexican empire under the onslaughts of Cortes' conquistadores is one of the major historical works of the decade. It bristles with moral and political issues that are profoundly relevant to our time, and is also a thrilling narrative, brimful of the sheer excitement of discovery.
The Brontës
The Bronte sisters, who occupy such an important place in English literature, continue to fascinate us. The book's photographs, some of them very rare, illustrate every aspect of the Brontes' lives, family, surroundings and works.
Juvenilia
Jane Austen's remarkable juvenilia date from 1787, when she was eleven, to 1793, when she was seventeen. She preserved these early writings in three manuscript notebooks, entitled 'Volume the first', 'Volume the second' and 'Volume the third'. Most of the twenty-seven items in these notebooks are short fictions, but the young Austen also wrote the opening of what could have become a full-length novel, 'Catharine', as well as dramatic sketches, verses and a few non-fictional pieces. Astonishingly sophisticated and inventive, these writings, with their anarchic energy, violence and irreverence, are now receiving the scholarly attention they deserve. This edition provides a fresh transcription of Austen's manuscripts, with comprehensive explanatory notes, an extensive critical introduction covering the context and publication history of the juvenilia, a chronology of Austen's life, and an authoritative textual apparatus. It also prints, for the first time, the copious satirical marginalia that Austen wrote on her copies of Oliver Goldsmith's History of England.--Book jacket.