Vera Brittain

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Patrick Marnham

Biography of Mary Farmar, a descendant of the Duke of Wellington, who married first Baron Swinfen and then Eric Siepmann. She started writing seriously at the age of 70 under the pen name of Mary Wesley to stave off poverty. Between the ages of 70 and 85 she produced a series of best sellers including "The Camomile Lawn", which appear to include significant autobiographical elements. Her life in pre-war and wartime Britain was remarkable, and almost scandalous. Her friends provided first hand experience of pre-war Europe, and then of the post war challenges that followed. A fascinating window into upper middle class Britain of the time.

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Michael Foreman

Memoirs of Foreman as a boy during the rebuilding of Britain after World War II. Foreman recalls victory bonfires, the ongoing rationing, prefab houses, baths in tin tubs, beaches first cleared of barbed wire and mines, and describes his development as an artist. Includes watercolor illustrations and period documents and photographs.

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Fay Weldon

"From life as a poor unwed mother in London to becoming one of England's best-selling authors and most popular exports, Fay Weldon has crammed more than most into her years. Wife, lover, playwright, novelist, feminist, antifeminist, winer and diner--Fay leads us through her peripatetic life with barely a role she can't illuminate"--Dustjacket.

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Fred Kaplan

From a bitter childhood mired in poverty and hard work to a career as the most acclaimed and best-loved writer in the English-speaking world, Charles Dickens had a life as tumultuous as any he created in his teeming novels of life in Victorian England. And no one has captured the rich texture of this life as colorfully and persuasively as Fred Kaplan in this acclaimed biography. Thoroughly researched, Dickens provides an absorbing and perceptive account of its subject as a singularly complex man and a consummate artist, offering readers new insights into Dickens' - and literature's - greatest works, such as Bleak House, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist.