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"Great Britain Social life and customs 20th century Fiction."
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The undertow
\"A novel about four generations of a British family--their secrets, their loves and losses, dreams and heartbreaks--captured in a series of individual moments that span the years from World War I, to World War II, to the 1960s, and up to the present\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
The ascent of the detective : police sleuths in Victorian and Edwardian England
The figure of the detective has long excited the imagination of the wider public, and the English police detective has been a special focus of attention in both print and visual media. Yet, while much has been written in the last three decades about the history of uniformed policemen in England, no similar work has focused on police detectives. This book redresses this by exploring the diverse and often arcane world of English police detectives during the formative period of their profession, from 1842 until the First World War, with special emphasis on the famed detective branch established at Scotland Yard. The book starts by illuminating the detectives' socio-economic background, how and why they became detectives, their working conditions, the differences between them and uniformed policemen, and their relations with the wider community. It then goes on to trace the factors that shaped their changing public image, from the embodiment of ‘un-English’ values to plebeian knights in armour, investigating the complex and symbiotic exchange between detectives and journalists, and analysing their image as it unfolded in the press, in literature, and in their own memoirs.
eBook
The secret keeper : a novel
During a party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the road and sees her mother speak to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother. Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to the family farm for Dorothy's ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by questions she hasn't thought about for decades.
Book
The Happy Hsiungs
Between 1935 and 1936, the play Lady Precious Stream was a big success as being performed and running for 1,000 nights at the Little Theatre in London. Its writer-director, Shih-I Hsiung (熊式一), was the first Chinese person to direct a West End play. Hsiung’s wife, Dymia, was also remarkable as the first Chinese woman in Britain to publish a fictional autobiography in English. By retrieving the lost histories of these two celebrated writers, this book considers how ideas of China and Chineseness are circulated and contested globally. Though fêted as ‘The Happy Hsiungs’, their lives ultimately highlight a bitter struggle in attempts to become modern.
eBook
Mid-century gothic : the uncanny objects of modernity in British literature and culture after the Second World War
'Mid-Century Gothic' defines a distinct post-war literary and cultural moment in Britain, lasting ten years from 1945-55. This was a decade haunted by the trauma of fascism and war, but equally uneasy about the new norms of peacetime and the resurgence of commodity culture. As old assumptions about the primacy of the human subject became increasingly uneasy, culture answered with gothic narratives that reflected two troubling qualities of the new objects of modernity: their uncannily autonomous agency, and their disquieting intimacy with the reified human body. The book offers fresh readings of novels, plays, essays and films of the period, unearthing neglected texts as well as reassessing canonical works. By bringing these into dialogue with the mid-century architecture, exhibitions and material culture, it provides a new perspective on a notoriously neglected historical moment and challenges previous accounts of the supposed timidity of post-war culture.
Book
Wishing for tomorrow : the sequel to A Little Princess
Relates what becomes of Ermengarde and the other girls left behind at Miss Minchin's School after Sara Crewe leaves to live with her guardian, the Indian gentleman.
BOOK
Je veux que les Inuits soient libres de nouveau
Taamusi Qumaq (1914-1993), considéré comme lun des grands penseurs des Inuit du Nunavik, a consacré sa vie à consigner la vie des siens ainsi que leur langue, tout en enregistrant les grands changements duXXe siècle. Son autobiographie, ici traduite en français, constitue un document de grande importance nous ouvrant à un univers culturel fascinant.
eBook
The Kennedy debutante
\"London, 1938. Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy has already taken England by storm, when she is presented to the king and queen. The effervescent It Girl of London society since her father was named the ambassador, Kick moves in rarified circles--dancing and drinking champagne at the hottest nightclubs and attending the horse races with nobility. One such acquaintance is Billy Hartington, the future Duke of Devonshire. Though initially reticent, the tall, handsome man sweeps Kick off her feet, but the obstacles to their love are many. Kick is a self-proclaimed triple threat--American, Catholic, and of Irish descent--all unacceptable to such a traditional family as Billy's\"-- Provided by publisher.
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