Daedalus Books

The quintessential Jazz Age writer, Fitzgerald masterfully portrayed the manners and morals of the wealthy and glamorous during the Roaring Twenties. This anthology includes 6 of his most popular stories: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, the title tale, The Offshore Pirate, The Ice Palace, The Jelly Bean, and May Day. This is a dover original selection from Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1920 and 1922.

Doherty's inspired retellings of some of the best-loved stories of all time come alive thanks to Ray's rich and vividly detailed illustrations. This gorgeous collection of offers a diversity of fairy tale worlds sure to engage readers of all ages.

From the acclaimed author of The Whiskey Rebels and A Conspiracy of Paper comes a superb new historical thriller set in the splendor and squalor of eighteenth-century London. In Benjamin Weaver, David Liss has created one of fiction's most enthralling characters. The year is 1722. Ruffian for hire, ex-boxer, and master of disguise, Weaver finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, pitted against Jerome Cobb, a wealthy and mysterious schemer who needs Weaver's strength and guile for his own treacherous plans. Weaver is blackmailed into stealing documents from England's most heavily guarded estate, the headquarters of the ruthless British East India Company, but the theft of corporate secrets is only the first move in a daring conspiracy within the eighteenth century's most powerful corporation. To save his friends and family from Cobb's reach, Weaver must infiltrate the Company, navigate its warring factions, and uncover a secret plot of corporate rivals, foreign spies, and government operatives. With millions of pounds and the security of the nation at stake, Weaver will find himself in a labyrinth of hidden agendas, daring enemies, and unexpected allies. With the explosive action and scrupulous period research that are David Liss's trademarks, The Devil's Company, depicting the birth of the modern corporation, is the most impressive achievement yet from an author who continues to set ever higher standards for historical suspense.

An authoritative collection of military histories from one of the foremost authors on the subject, Stephen E. Ambrose, historical consultant on Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. Each title include a full index and list of sources.

A dramatic, detailed, and essential narrative account of the 1938 Munich appeasement crisis. Modern history writing at its best.

»The return of Nic Costa is a true cause for celebration! A literate, page-turning tale that finds our hero — one of the most appealing in crime fiction — zipping between two of the most iconic cities in the world: Rome and San Francisco — Jeffery Deaver, «New York Times» — bestselling author».

Meri is newly married, pregnant, and standing on the cusp of her life as a wife and mother, recognizing with some terror the gap between reality and expectation. Delia — wife of the two-term liberal senator Tom Naughton — is Meri's new neighbor in the adjacent New England town house. Tom's chronic infidelity has been an open secret in Washington circles, but despite the complexity of their relationship, the bond between them remains strong. Soon Delia and Meri find themselves leading strangely parallel lives, as they both reckon with the contours and mysteries of marriage: one refined and abraded by years of complicated intimacy, the other barely begun. With precision and a rich vitality, Sue Miller — beloved and bestselling author of While I Was Gone — brings us a highly charged, superlative novel about marriage and forgiveness.

In certain uncanny ways this wonderful, compelling novel prefigures Suite Francaise and rehearses some of the themes of her big unfinished sequence of novels. Nemirovsky must have down put her pen in 1940 and picked it straight up again to embark on Suite Francaise...This novel, though is finished, and exquisitely so — first published in France in 1947. It tells the story of two intertwined but warring French families through two world wars from 1911 to 1940, and its themes are war, love and money. This is Balzac or The Forsyte Saga on a smaller, more intimate scale, with the bourgeoisie observed close-up, with Nemirovsky's characteristically clear-eyed compassion and sly humour. Full of moving, vivid observation of the devastating effects of the two wars on a small Normandy town and an industrial family, whose patriarch is a monstrous David Golder character (as French as they come and not in the least Jewish). The exodus and flow of refugee humanity through the town in both wars pre-figures Suite Francaise, but differently again, because this is Normandy and near the Somme, and the town itself is twice razed. Evocative and unputdownable the novel brings home with heartbreaking detail and clarity how close were those two wars, how history repeated itself, unbelievably. It opens in the Edwardian era (on a fashionable Normandy beach) and ends with a changed world, under Nazi occupation. Nemirovsky has an astonishing ability to give you the most blinkered, small-minded of characters (in this case Mme Hardelot, mother of one of the central characters) and bring tears to your eyes — when Mme H realises that her son is leaving for the front in minutes rather than days... It's a gripping story of family life and starcrossed love, of money and feuds, against the backdrop of two terrible wars.

Infamous for his politics and his scandalous sex life, Charlie Chaplin was a much more complex and contradictory character than has hitherto been known. Weissman casts a whole new light both on the screen legend and on the turbulent era through which he lived. 16-page b&w photo insert.

Since his death in 1967, Ernesto Che Guevara has become a universally known revolutionary icon and political figure whose image is among the most recognizable in the world. This dramatic and extensively researched book breathes new life into his story, portraying his struggle through the medium of the underground political comic — one of the most prominent countercultural art forms since the 1960s. Spain Rodriguez's powerful artwork illuminates Che's life and the experiences that shaped him, from his motorcycle journey through Latin America, his rise to prominence as a leader in Fidel Castro's revolutionary movement, his travels in Africa, his involvement in the insurgency that led to his death in Bolivia, and his extraordinary legacy.

This fascinating book by one of Britain's most acclaimed Shakespeare scholars explores the extraordinary staying-power of the world's most famous dramatist. Bate opens by taking up questions of authorship and then goes on to trace Shakespeare's canonization and near-deification, examining not only the uniqueness of his status among English-speaking readers but also his effect on literary cultures across the globe. Ambitious, wide-ranging, and historically rich, this book shapes a provocative inquiry into the nature of genius as it ponders the legacy of a talent unequalled in English letters. A bold and meticulous work of scholarship, The Genius of Shakespeare is also lively and accessibly written and will appeal to any reader who has marveled at the Bard and the enduring power of his work. This tenth anniversary edition has a new twenty-page afterword that addresses the renewed interest in Shakespeare and recent film adaptations of his most celebrated works.

This one-volume biography of Adolf Hitler distills Ian Kershaw's stunning two-volume study Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler: 1936–1945: Nemesis. From Hitler's origins as a failed artist in fin-de-siècle Vienna to the terrifying last days in his Berlin bunker, Kershaw's biography is a mesmerizing portrait of how Hitler attained, exercised, and retained power. Drawing on previously untapped sources, such as Goebbels' diaries, and illustrated with 151 photographs, Kershaw addresses crucial questions about the unique nature of Nazi radicalism, the Holocaust, and the poisoned European world that allowed Hitler to operate so effectively.

The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but the familiarity with later 19th-century stories and history tends to give us a distorted view. Using character portraits and key events, Paterson brings the world of Victorian Britain alive, from the lifestyles of the aristocrats to the depths of the London slums.

Mr. Pusskins is back And this time he's got company... Mr. Pusskins was perfectly happy. That is, until Emily decided to bring home a surprise. A surprise named Little Whiskers. Mr. Pusskins does not want a kitten around. He does not want to play lovely games with that kitten. But, little does Mr. Pusskins know, this pesky pussycat doesn't want to play lovely games either...

Get up close and personal with some of the world's most terrifying and dangerous predators Amazing 3-D pop-ups swing off the page, bringing to life spiders, polar bears, crocodiles, and more Filled with interesting facts and vibrant artwork, Predators takes readers on an interactive and imaginative journey into the wild This paper-over-board book has innovative, swinging pop-ups. Packaged in a resealable polybag with sell sheet. Foil-stamping on cover.

Following on from his epic 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow, bestselling author Adam Zamoyski has written the dramatic story of the Congress of Vienna. In the wake of his disastrous Russian campaign of 1812, Napoleon's imperious grip on Europe began to weaken, raising the question of how the Continent was to be reconstructed after his defeat. There were many who dreamed of a peace to end all wars, in which the interests of peoples as well as those of rulers would be taken into account. But what followed was an unseemly and at times brutal scramble for territory by the most powerful states, in which countries were traded as if they had been private and their inhabitants counted like cattle. The results, fixed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, not only laid the foundations of the European world we know; it put in place a social order and a security system that lie at the root of many of the problems which dog the world today.Although the defining moments took place in Vienna, and the principle players included Tsar Alexander I of Russia, the Austrian Chancellor Metternich, the Duke of Wellington and the French master of diplomacy Talleyrand, as well as Napoleon himself, the accepted view of the gathering of statesmen reordering the Continent in elegant salons is a false one. Many of the crucial questions were decided on the battlefield or in squalid roadside cottages amid the vagaries of war. And the proceedings in Vienna itself were not as decorous as is usually represented. Drawing on a wide range of first-hand sources in six languages, which include not only official documents, private letters, diaries and first-hand accounts, but also the reports of police spies and informers, Adam Zamoyski gets below the thin veneer of courtliness and reveals that the new Europe was forged by men in thrall to fear, greed and lust, in an atmosphere of moral depravity in which sexual favours were traded as readily as provinces and the 'souls' who inhabited them. He has created a chilling account, full of menace as well as frivolity.

In this perfect companion to London: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd once again delves into the hidden byways of history, describing the river's endless allure in a journey overflowing with characters, incidents, and wry observations. Thames: The Biography meanders gloriously, rather like the river itself. In short, lively chapters Ackroyd writes about connections between the Thames and such historical figures as Julius Caesar and Henry the VIII, and offers memorable portraits of the ordinary men and women who depend upon the river for their livelihoods. He visits all the towns and villages along the river from Oxfordshire to London and describes the magnificent royal residences, as well as the bridges and docks, locks and weirs, found along its 215-mile run. The Thames as a source of artistic inspiration comes brilliantly to life as Ackroyd invokes Chaucer, Shakespeare, Turner, Shelley, and other writers, poets, and painters who have been enchanted by its many moods and colors. In his signature entertaining and informative manner, Ackroyd allows the reader to dip into chapters in his own spirit, or to follow the Thames from source to sea. Illustrated with maps and photographs, THAMES is a vivid, highly original mosaic of life by and on the water.

This tale of two princesses — one beautiful and one unattractive — and of the struggle between sacred and profane love is Lewis's reworking of the myth of Cupid and Psyche and one of his most enduring works.

A phenomenally phonetic ABC book, packed with more than enough jokes to keep children amused and plenty of extra words on each page to expand their vocabulary. A flap for each letter reveals surprises and even more words, and cheerful illustrations and bright colors add to learning fun. Colin Hawkins won a scholarship to art school at the age of thirteen. Jacqui Hawkins went to college in London, where she studied graphic design. They are married with two children and now live in Ireland. Their first book, Witches, was published in 1981; since then, they have together produced over one hundred titles.

A magisterial work of narrative history, hailed in Britain as the best one-volume account of the British Empire and an outstanding book (The Times Literary Supplement), After the American Revolution, the British Empire appeared to be doomed. But over the next 150 years it grew to become the greatest and most diverse empire the world has ever seen — ranging from Canada to Australia to China, India, and Egypt — seven times larger than the Roman Empire at its apogee. Britannia ruled the waves and a quarter of the earth. Yet it was also a fundamentally weak empire, as Piers Brendon shows in this vivid and sweeping chronicle. Run from a tiny island base, the British Empire operated on a shoestring with the help of local elites. It enshrined a belief in freedom that would fatally undermine its authority. Spread too thin, and facing wars, economic crises, and domestic discord, the empire would vanish almost as quickly as it appeared. Within a generation, the mighty structure collapsed, sometimes amid bloodshed. This rapid demise left unfinished business in Rhodesia, the Falklands, and Hong Kong. It left an array of dependencies and a ghost of an empire overshadowed by a rising America. Above all, it left a contested legacy: at best, a sporting spirit, a legal code, and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife. Brendon tells this story with brio and brilliance; covering a vast canvas, he fills it with vivid firsthand accounts of life in the colonies and intimate portraits of the sometimes eccentric British officials who administered them. It is all here — from brief lives to telling anecdotes to comic episodes to symbolic moments. Panoramicin scope and riveting in detail, this is narrative history at its finest.

Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) enjoyed worldwide fame of a kind unmatched by that of any other writer in the first half of the twentieth century. Prodigiously gifted and prolific, riddled with contradictions, praised increasingly for political rather than literary reasons, he left a vast body of writing that contains acknowledged masterpieces alongside many currently neglected works that still await impartial assessment.Taken together, the pieces in this book (many of them based on fuller texts than those of previously published translations) present a surprising and unfamiliar Gorky: a figure who, once the cliches are stripped away from him, becomes ever more fascinating and enigmatic as man, as writer, and as historical figure. Among the volume's selections are portraits of Gorky by four particularly astute observers: poet Vladislav Khodasevich, critics Boris Eikhenbaum and Georgy Adamovich, and novelist Evgeny Zamiatin.Fanger's generous annotations and brilliant introduction will make this book indispensable to every reader with an interest in Tolstoy, Gorky, modern Russian literature and politics, or the art of the memoir.

Bestselling author Nicholson Baker, recognized as one of the most dexterous and talented writers in the US today, has created a compelling work of non-fiction bound to provoke discussion and controversy — a wide-ranging, astonishingly fresh perspective on the political and social landscape that gave rise to World War II. Human Smoke delivers a closely textured, deeply moving indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and '40s. Incorporating meticulous research and well-documented sources — including newspaper and magazine articles, radio speeches, memoirs, and diaries — the book juxtaposes hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering, and mercy. Vivid glimpses of political leaders and their dissenters illuminate and examine the gradual, horrifying advance towards overt global war and Holocaust. Praised by critics and readers alike for his exquisitely observant eye and deft, inimitable prose, Baker has assembled a narrative within Human Smoke that unfolds gracefully, tragically, and persuasively.

In a hugely enjoyable read with gloriously corrosive prose, MJ Harper slashes and burns through the whole of accepted academic thought about the history of the English Language. According to Harper: 1. English does not derive from Anglo-Saxon. 2. French, Italian, and Spanish did not descend from Latin. 3. Middle English is a wholly imaginary language created by well-meaning by deluded academics. And that's just the beginning! Part revisionist history, part treatise on the real origins of English, and part impassioned argument against staid academe, The Secret History of the English Language is essential reading for language lovers, history buffs, Anglophiles, and anyone who has ever thought twice about what they've learned in school.

Vladimir Nabokov was hailed by Salman Rushdie as the most important writer ever to cross the boundary between one language and another. A Russian emigre who began writing in English after his forties, Nabokov was a trilingual author, equally competent in Russian, English, and French. A gifted and tireless translator, he bridged the gap between languages nimbly and joyously.Here, collected for the first time in one volume as Nabokov always wished, are many of his English translations of Russian verse, presented next to the Russian originals, as well as three never-before-published poems written in English by Nabokov himself. Here, also, are some of his notes on the dangers and thrills of translation. With an introduction by Brian Boyd, author of the prize-winning biography of Nabokov, «Verses and Versions» is a momentous and authoritative contribution to Nabokov's published works.