Trollope

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Dzhon Dikson Karr

This vivid biography, written by John Dickson Carr, a giant in the field of mystery fiction, benefits from his full access to the archives of the eminent Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—to his notebooks, diaries, press clippings, and voluminous correspondence. Like his creation Sherlock Holmes, Doyle had "a horror of destroying documents," and until his death in 1930, they accumulated to vast amount throughout his house at Windlesham. They provide many of the words incorporated by Carr in this lively portrayal of Doyle's forays into politics, his infatuation with spiritualism, his literary ambitions, and dinner-table conversations with friends like H. G. Wells and King Edward VII. Carr, then, in a sense collaborates with his subject to unfold a colorful narrative that takes Doyle from his school days at Stonyhurst to Edinburgh University and a medical practice at Southsea, where he conceived the idea of wedding scientific study to criminal investigation in the fictive person of Sherlock Holmes. It also explores the private tragedy of Doyle's first marriage and long-delayed second as it follows him into the arena of public activity, propaganda, and literary output that would win him not only celebrity but also knighthood. 8 pages of black-and-white photographs are featured.

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Richard Greene

Cassis reveals the private side of Greene - an opinionated, charming, articulate, controversial, complex person who was always at odds with conventional wisdom. The fifty-seven excerpts included in this book contain interviews with Greene as well as personal impressions, diary entries, articles, essays, literary pieces, and recollections by friends and contemporaries that span fifty years. Topics range from Greene's conversion to Catholicism to the writer's role in society. Contributors include such well-known writers as Anthony Burgess, John Mortimer, V. S. Pritchett, Kathleen Raine, A. L. Rowse, Israel Shenker, Kenneth Tynan, and Evelyn Waugh. In this collection of essays, A. F. Cassis sheds light on the mystery of Graham Greene. Novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, journalist, and playwright, Greene (1904-91) is considered one of the finest literary talents of the twentieth century. He combined his abilities as a wonderful storyteller and a master craftsman to bring respectability to the thriller genre, or what the author himself called "entertainments." In his writings, Greene expressed serious and controversial views on religious, political, and social issues.

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Bob Dole

The former senator and presidential candidate collects bipartisan presidential humor from famous, and not-so-famous, chief executives, from Washington to Clinton.

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Piers Dudgeon

"Captivated is a true story of genius and possession at a crossroads in time, when the late nineteenth-century world of the occult and the psychic arts gave way to the new science of psychology." "The central characters are J.M. Barrie, a man tormented by inner demons since childhood; George du Maurier, the creator of Svengali, who showed how it is possible by means of hypnosis for one person to gain control over the mind of another; and Daphne du Maurier, George's enigmatic granddaughter, author of Rebecca and secret chronicler of her family's story." "This book delves deep, makes links and yields up secrets. It tells how Barrie brought his victims to nervous breakdown, early death and suicide, and how three writers formed an image of their dark side - in Svengali, Peter Pan and Rebecca - and how these images cleaved to reality and took control."--Jacket.