Philip Ziegler

If Ethelred was notoriously 'Unready' and Alfred 'Great', King George VI should bear the designation of 'George the Dutiful'. Throughout his life he dedicated himself to the pursuit of what he thought he ought to be doing rather than what he wanted to do. Inarticulate and loathing any sort of public appearances, he accepted that it was his destiny to figure regularly and conspicuously in the public eye, gritted his teeth, largely conquered his crippling stammer and got on with it. He was not born to be king, but he made an admirable one, and was the figurehead of the nation at the time of its greatest trial, during the Second World War. This is an enjoyable book about him.

"Hollywood superstar; Oscar-winning director; greatest stage actor of the twentieth century. The era abounded in great actors - Gielgud, Richardson, Guinness, Burton, O'Toole - but none could challenge Laurence Olivier's range and power. By the 1940s he had achieved international stardom. His affair with Vivien Leigh led to a marriage as glamorous and as tragic as any in Hollywood history. He was as accomplished a director as he was a leading man: his three Shakespearian adaptations are among the most memorable ever filmed. And yet, at the height of his fame, he accepted what was no more than an administrator's wage to become the founding Director of the National Theatre. In 2013 the theatre celebrates its fiftieth anniversary; without Olivier's leadership it would never have achieved the status that it enjoys today. Off-stage, Olivier was the most extravagant of characters: generous, yet almost insanely jealous of those few contemporaries whom he deemed to be his rivals; charming but with a ferocious temper. With access to more than fifty hours of candid, unpublished interviews, Philip Ziegler ensures that Olivier's true character - at its most undisguised - shines through as never before." --Publisher's description.

Sketches the life of the British king and examines his attitudes towards political reform in the early nineteenth-century.

"At the heart of every literary fracas from 1918 until well after 1945, Osbert was a close friend and sometime sparring partner of T.S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh and Cyril Connolly, and a ferocious enemy of Noel Coward, the Leavises and Winston Churchill. His love life was notoriously turbulent; he could be outrageous, perverse, arrogant, bullying; he could be generous, loyal, considerate, public-spirited - but he was never dull." "This biography provides social insights, a striking overview of literary Britain in this century and, a portrait of a remarkable human being."--Jacket.