-- Annales

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Molly Caldwell Crosby

In the summer of 1913, under the cover of London's perpetual smoggy dusk, two brilliant minds are pitted against each other -- a celebrated gentleman thief and a talented Scotland Yard detective -- in the greatest jewel heist of the new century. An exquisite strand of pale pink pearls, worth more than the Hope Diamond, has been bought by a Hatton Garden broker. Word of the "Mona Lisa of Pearls" spreads around the world, captivating jewelers as well as thieves. In transit to London from Paris, the necklace vanishes without a trace. Joseph Grizzard, "the King of Fences," is the charming leader of a vast gang of thieves in London's East End. Grizzard grew up on the streets of Whitechapel during the terror of Jack the Ripper to rise to the top of the criminal world. Wealthy, married, and a father, Grizzard still cannot resist the sport of crime, and the pearl necklace proves an irresistible challenge. Inspector Alfred Ward patrols the city's dark, befogged streets before joining the brand-new division of the Metropolitan Police known as "detectives." Ward earns his stripes catching some of the great murderers of Victorian London and, at the height of his career, is asked to turn his forensic talents to finding the missing pearls and the thief who stole them. In the spirit of The Great Train Robbery and the tales of Sherlock Holmes, this is the true story of a psychological cat-and-mouse game set against the backdrop of London's golden Edwardian era. Thoroughly researched, compellingly colorful, The Great Pearl Heist is a gripping narrative account of this little-known, yet extraordinary crime. - Jacket flap.

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Theresa Jill Buckland

"Based on new archival research, this book uniquely presents a fresh interrogation of how, among London's fashionable society, dancing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was variously a means of social modelling, change, conformity and creative individual expression"-- Provided by publisher.

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Melvin Burgess

In mid-nineteenth century London, three young boys try to retrieve a valuable roll of copper from the bottom of the Thames River.

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Philip Hicks

This book shows how our idea of history was shaped by historians and their readers in eighteenth-century England. Philip Hicks reinterprets the historical writing of the early-modern era as a vibrant clash between ancient models for historical composition and a modernizing culture characterized by party politics, print, Christianity and antiquarian erudition, and traces the social, literary and political implications of neoclassical history for English culture at large. By paying unprecedented attention to historical genres and audiences, this study overturns the orthodox view of David Hume as simply a 'philosophical historian' and portrays him instead as a celebrated peer of Livy and Tacitus. By resuscitating neoclassical historiography, both Hume and the 1st Earl of Clarendon breathed life into their disparate political programs; by failing to come to grips with neoclassical ideals, Jonathan Swift and Lord Bolingbroke languished in the coveted role of Thucydidean historian of one's own times.