Daedalus Books

Where can you find the 'Devil's footprints'? What happened at the 'hangman's stone'? Did Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, ever really exist? Where was King Arthur laid to rest? Bringing together tales of hauntings, highwaymen, family curses and lovers' leaps, this magnificent guide will take you on a magical journey through England's legendary past.

New title! The first visual dictionary to incorporate dictionary-scale definitions. More than 20,000 clear and concise terms and 6,000 full-color, highly detailed illustrations are grouped into 17 chapters outlining subjects from astronomy to sports. ideal for teachers, parents, translators, and students.

This, the second and final volume of Stephen Walsh's magisterial biography of Igor Stravinsky, begins in 1934, when Stravinsky is fifty-two and living in France. Already regarded by many as the most important composer of his generation, Stravinsky is nevertheless at this point a fairly unhappy expatriate, all too aware of the war clouds beginning to gather. Though he still maintains a family life with his wife and children, much of his time is spent with his mistress, Vera Sudeykina, while traveling around Europe giving concerts in order to earn the money to support his dependents-which include a number of relatives. Composing, of course, remains the center of his existence. But changes are imminent: within only a few years his wife, Katya, will be dead, his family scattered, and Stravinsky himself, together with Vera, starting over again in America. Stravinsky: The Second Exile follows the composer through the remainder of his long life, years during which he produces such masterworks as The Rake's Progress and Symphony in C, and achieves a new level of fame as a conductor and raconteur in his own right. With a dazzling command of sources in several languages and a keen feeling for accuracy in situations where truth and falsehood have become blurred, Walsh traces and illuminates Stravinsky's increasingly complex and often agonized family relationships along with his crucially important connection with his associate Robert Craft. Walsh is also, as a musicologist and critic, able to speak with knowledge and wit about Stravinsky's work, expertly describing and assessing the composer's musical journey from the neoclassicism of his late French and early American periods, through hisearly essays in serial technique, and on finally to the astonishing intricacies of his final compositions. The first volume of this biography, Stravinsky: A Creative Spring, was received with glowing praise for its insight, narrative skills, and readability. The period covered here, beset as it is with myths and misconceptions, is handled with even greater authority. Carefully weighed, eloquent, packed with rich and fascinating detail, it casts a brilliant new light on one of the greatest artists of our time.

Artie Wu and Quincy Durant, one of Southern California's unlikeliest pairs, find that the local mix-up they are looking into has suddenly expanded in space, from Vietnam to Washington, and in time, through twenty years of intrigue and deception.

This heart warming children's book blends the foundations of language and master-works from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts into a lovely journey that both parent and child will enjoy. Twenty-six works from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon accompany delightful prose that unites the alphabet and art in bold color. As the first ABC book published by the VMFA, it surely will be the quintessential gift for children for years to come.

Talented historian Maya Jasonoff offers an alternative history of the British Empire. It is not about conquest — but rather a collection of startling and fascinating personal accounts of cross-cultural exchange from those who found themselves on the edges of Empire. A Palladian mansion filled with western art in the centre of old Calcutta, the Mughal Emperor's letters in an archive in the French Alps, the names of Italian adventurers scratched into the walls of Egyptian temples: in this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff delves into the stories behind artefacts like these to uncover the lives of collectors in India and Egypt who lived on the frontiers of European empire. Edge of Empire traces their exploits to tell an intimate history of imperialism. Written and researched on four continents, Edge of Empire tells a story about the making of European empires, ones that break away from the grand narratives of power, exploitation, and resistance, to delve into the personal dimensions of imperialism. She asks what people brought to imperial frontiers and what they took away, and what motives drove them, whether ambition, opportunism, curiosity, or greed. This rich and compelling book enters a world where people lived, loved, and died, and identified with each other across cultures much more than our prejudices about 'Empire' might suggest.

• Over 200 best-of-the-year photos. • Index of top photographers and their representatives, plus technical information. Art directors, designers, photographers, students, and everyone who’s interested in the latest and most innovative photography needs a copy of Photo Annual 2006. This eagerly anticipated yearly anthology presents the latest in cutting-edge images, with profiles of top photographers and full contact information plus camera and film information on each picture. An inspiring resource, a practical art book, Photo Annual 2006 gathers the finest work of the year into one exciting volume.

The carpenter Gepetto has carved an extraordinary marionette called Pinocchio out of a special piece of wood. But what a scamp that Pinocchio turns out to be! He pulls off Gepetto's wig and races out the door in search of adventure. Pinocchio finds plenty, but he is so mischievous and so very disobedient that despite the advice of Cricket and the Blue Fairy, he always seems to land in trouble. Yet Pinocchio is also kindhearted and loving, traits that, if he can only learn to behave, may help him realize his dream of becoming a real boy. For over a hundred years, children have delighted in this tale, now in a handsome new edition for a new generation.

The extraordinary images of Surrealist master, Rene Magritte, often began in a viewfinder. In this major study, the first of its kind, noted photography critic and Magritte scholar, Patrick Roegiers draws revealing connections between the artist's paintings and his use of the emerging medium of photography, which Magritte used as a hobby, as a serious component of his painting, and as an art in itself. Examining more than 200 previously unpublished photographs from Magritte's personal collection, Roegiers traces Magritte's life and work through his photography, and uncovers important source material for the paintings. We see here pictures of friends (including the Belgian Surrealists Scutenaire, Nouge and Mesens) and acquaintances, often photographed by Magritte in stage-managed tableaux. We glimpse his wife, muse, and model Georgette, posing whimsically and earnestly as the couple decamp for Paris in 1927 and return to Brussels three years later. And perhaps most importantly, Magritte's photographic self-portraits provide crucial insight into the creation of the iconic bowler-hatted figure in Magritte's paintings, and of key works such as Clairvoyance (1936). Every image had meaning for Magritte. Using the lens as a way of confronting the visible, he photographed trivial objects, surroundings and situations in order to explore the most unpredictable reaches of the imaginary. This all-encompassing look at what Magritte saw through the camera, and what he did in front of it, adds substantially to our appreciation of the artist who gave us the eye of The False Mirror.

In this follow-up to CAPTAIN ALATRISTE, the valiant Diego Alatriste returns for another adventure of swordplay, narrow escapes, and political intrigue within the corrupt Spanish court of the 1620s. Sword-for-hire Alatriste accepts a commission from Vicente de la Cruz to assist him and his sons in freeing his daughter, Elvira, from a convent where she is forced to submit to the attentions of an influential and lecherous priest, Fray Juan Coroado. De la Cruz must resort to this desperate measure because when he last attempted to see his daughter, Fray Juan threatened to reveal the stain on the family name — i.e., that de la Cruz's great-grandfather was a Jew. Death awaits anyone caught breaking into a convent, as Alatriste well knows, but the true risks of the rescue attempt only become plain after he is faced with a shocking betrayal.

A well-known American journalist travels to Germany to write about the Allied occupation — and also to find the German woman with whom he had an affair before the war began. In war-ravaged Berlin, he finds more than he expected, including a murdered American soldier and a stunning level of postwar corruption that is inextricably mixed with the American and Russian rocket projects.

To a generation in full revolt against any form of authority, «Tune in, turn on, drop out» became a mantra, and its popularizer, Dr. Timothy Leary, a guru. A charismatic and brilliant psychologist, Leary became first intrigued and then obsessed by the effects of psychedelic drugs in the 1960s while teaching at Harvard, where he not only encouraged but instituted their experimental use among students and faculty. What began as research into human consciousness turned into a mission to alter consciousness itself. Leary transformed himself from serious social scientist into counterculture shaman, embodying the idealism and the hedonism of an age of revolutionary change. Timothy Leary is the first major biography of one of the most controversial figures in postwar America.

Punctuation reveals the writer: haphazard commas, for example, reveal haphazard thinking; clear, lucid breaks reveal clear, lucid thinking. Punctuation can be used to teach the writer how to think and how to write. This short, practical book shows authors the benefits that can be reaped from mastering punctuation: the art of style, sentence length, meaning, and economy of words. There are full-length chapters devoted to the period, the comma, the semicolon, the colon, quotation marks, the dash and parentheses, the paragraph and section break, and a cumulative chapter on integrating them all into «The Symphony of Punctuation.» Filled with exercises and examples from literary masters (Why did Poe and Melville rely on the semicolon? Why did Hemingway embrace the period?), A Dash of Style is interactive, highly engaging, and a necessity for creative writers as well as for anyone looking to make punctuation their friend instead of their mysterious foe.

»Troubled restaurant inspector Danny Skinner is engaged on a quest to find the mysterious father his mother will not identify. He discovers that a television chef's book, «The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs», may hold the necessary clues. Unraveling this classified information is the key to learning the crippling compulsions that threaten to wreck his young life. His ensuing journey takes him from Europe's festival city of Edinburgh to the foodie city of San Francisco.» «But the hard-drinking, womanizing Skinner has a strange nemesis in the form of model-railway enthusiast Brian Kibby. It is Skinner's unfathomable, obsessive hatred of Kibby that takes over everything, threatening to destroy not only Skinner and his mission but also those he loves most dearly. When Kibby contracts a horrific, debilitating, and undiagnosable disease, Skinner understands that his destiny is inextricably bound to that of his hated rival, and he is faced with a terrible dilemma». «The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs» is a gothic parable about the great obsessions of our time: food, sex, and minor celebrity, and it is a brilliant examination of identity, male rivalry, and the need to belong in the world.

A provocative account of colonial America, exploring the key events, individuals, and themes of this pivotal period. From the fearful crossing of the stormy Atlantic to the growth of the early settlements, to the French and Indian War and the unrest of the 1760s, Polk brilliantly traces the progress of the colonies to the point where the break with England was inevitable.

Virtually all versions of the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table are derived from Thomas Malory's «Morte d'Arthur», one of the most renowned works of English literature. Yet the author, a 15th-century knight, has remained an enigma, while the scant historical records imply he was a criminal, imprisoned for rape, ambush, and attacks on abbeys. Historian, writer, and broadcaster Christina Hardyment uncovers a different Malory, however, from new historical research and a critical examination of the only known manuscript of his book. In this history, illustrated with photographs and reproductions of medieval manuscripts and miniatures, she describes a soldier and a connoisseur of literature, who served under Henry V and remained loyal to the Lancasters in the War of the Roses. Imprisoned largely for his political stance, Malory wished for and wrote of a nobler time.

Master Your Coursework with Collins College Outlines The Collins College Outline for Modern European History begins with the emergence of Modern Europe in 1450, continues through the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the Age of European Revolution, the era of the Nation State, both World Wars, the post-World War II Superpower Spheres, and concludes with Europe's current trend toward an ultramodern existence.

The Russian creator of the czarist master detective Erast Fandorin here introduces a new, irresistible sleuth. In a remote province of late 19th-century Russia, Bishop Mitrofanii has a family crisis on his hands: one of his great aunt's rare white bulldogs has been poisoned on her estate, probably as an attack on the old woman. With a fistful of erratic family members and hangers-on as possible suspects, the bishop knows the only one who can solve the apparently clueless crime is Sister Pelagia—freckled, bespectacled, lively, curious, clumsy, and extraordinarily persistent.

Jimi Hendrix continues to fascinate, and sell huge quantities of albums, even 35 years after his death. Quite apart from his influence on musicians and fans, a large part of the appeal of his sensational life story lies in the thrill of the era whose values he came to stand for. The Sixties still exert a massive pull over pop culture and this is genuinely a book for anyone interested, not only in Hendrix but also in anything to do with the pop culture of the last 40 years. Meticulously researched and sensitively and beautifully written, this is a labour of love that reveals the nuances, foibles and tragedies of the human being behind the iconic image. This is the sweeping, authoritative and colourful biography that Jimi Hendrix deserves and that his legions of fans, young and old have been waiting for.

Sharpe is back, in this 21st entry in Bernard Cornwell's consistently brilliant historical adventure series. In the winter of 1811 the war against Napoleon seems lost. Spain has fallen except for Cádiz, now under siege. Richard Sharpe and his company are sent to break a bridge across the River Guadiana. What they find is that they have more than one enemy, including a murderous priest blackmailing the British ambassador with a pack of letters to his prostitute lover, a Spanish force more interested in appeasing the French than fighting them, and their own pompous Brigadier Moon. As he does so well, Cornwell brings the historical battle of Barrosa to life, in which an outnumbered British infantry refused to surrender.

One of the most influential religious writers of his day, Clive Staples Lewis was an Oxford don and a scholar of medieval literature who loved to debate philosophy at his local pub. In this biography of C.S. Lewis, Alan Jacobs relates the facts and anecdotes of Lewis's life that shaped his thought and writing, from his childhood in Ireland to his horrific experiences in World War I, from his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien to his late-life marriage to Joy Davidman.

The modern clash between East and West began in earnest in 1853, suggests George Feifer, when Commodore Matthew Perry landed in Japan, intending to frighten the Japanese into submission. Due to his careful preparation and gunboat diplomacy, he succeeded; an unequal treaty was signed at Kanagawa, which opened ports to America and ended centuries of Japanese isolation. Both sides believed they were morally and culturally superior to the other, and misunderstandings and distrust would persist far into the 20th century. Admiral Yamamoto Isoruku, the mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack, once said that he had joined the Navy because he «wanted to repay Commodore Perry's visit.»

In this fascinating and highly informative account of the development of militant Islamist praxis and ideology in the contemporary Middle East, [Fawaz] Gerges («The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global») explains what the jihadists are about and what they intend to accomplish. In addition to relying on a number of primary Arabic sources, the author has interviewed several jihadists, most importantly Kamal al-Said Habib, who founded the Jihadist Movement. Gerges, born and raised a Christian in Lebanon, demonstrates remarkable objectivity in explaining the world as seen from the vantage point of Muslim militants.... The author's ability to explain complex issues in a jargon-free and easy-flowing narrative makes this book one of the best, most useful, and most timely volumes for nonspecialist readers.

David Mitchell comes home — to England, 1982, and the cusp of adolescence. Jason Taylor is 13, doomed to be growing up in the most boring family in the deadest village (Black Swan Green) in the dullest county (Worcestershire) in the most tedious nation (England) on earth. And he stammers. 13 chapters, each as self-contained as a short story, follow 13 months in his life as he negotiates the pitfalls of school and home and contends with bullies, girls and family politics. In the distance, the Falklands conflict breaks out; close at hand, the village mobilises against a gypsy camp. And through Jason's eyes, we see what he doesn't know he knows — and watch unfold what will make him wish his life had been as uneventful as he had believed. Vividly capturing the mood of the times — high unemployment, Cold War politics and the sunset of agrarian England — this is at once a portrait of an era and of an age: the black hole between childhood and teenagerdom.