John, The painter

JOHN THE PAINTER
the first modern terrorist
by Jessica Warner
Historian Simon Schama was more enthusiastic about his carefully researched work, describing it as a 'rich, ambitious history, executed in literary fire works : a small glory and a joy to read'.
This book's anti hero trained as a house painter but could not find work, so he tramped the country looking for work , his jobs became house breaking and pick pocketing. After a two years of spell in America, he became an impassioned supporter of the American Revolution.
His first act of terror , on returning to England in 1776 , was to try to burn down Portsmouth Dockyard . Unlucky for him , only the rope house was destroyed. Next, he set some fires in Bristol. The country was terrified and the news papers carried full of scare stories. Was he acting alone or part of a gang? Who were his American Masters? At the height of the scare , King George III was being briefed daily, and offered a huge reward for the miscreant;s capture.
The Bow street runners were sent in pursuit. Would the terrorist be caught or would the Royal dockyards be destroyed and the British war effort in America come to a grinding halt?

Aubrey Beardsley

AUBREY BEARDSLEY
by Patrick Bade
Probably no artist made such an impact in such a short time. Aubrey Beardsley was only aged 25 when he died. Yet his works were already famous all over. He was hailed asa agenius. He was rebelling against materialism and morals thro his works. This artist ranked along side people such as Oscar Wilde, with him the artist shared a love and hate relationship. He was initially influenced by Pre Raphaelites and later developed his own technique, which owed much to the Japanese style - eschewing paint for pen and ink

Aubrey Beardsley

AUBREY BEARDSLEY
by Patrick Bade
Probably no artist made such an impact in such a short time. Aubrey Beardsley was only aged 25 when he died. Yet his works were already famous all over. He was hailed asa agenius. He was rebelling against materialism and morals thro his works. This artist ranked along side people such as Oscar Wilde, with him the artist shared a love and hate relationship. He was initially influenced by Pre Raphaelites and later developed his own technique, which owed much to the Japanese style - eschewing paint for pen and ink

Allure

ALLURE
By Diana Vreeland
‘Allure is some thing that exists’, Diana Vreeland said, ‘It is some thing around you, like a perfume or a scent, it is like memory, it pervades.’ Diana Vreeland was not only a fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar and editor inn chief of Vogue or almost a decade and was also the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of arts costume institute.
She inspired the world of fashion for over 50 years until her death in 1989. This book is Vreeland’s personal selections of 164 images by some of the last century’s greatest photographers – among them are: Horst, De Meyer, Avedon, Beaton, Penn, and Steichen. Capturing the people and events that gave shape to the culture of an era, they feature personalities including: Garbo, Nureyev, Callas, and Queen Mary, the duchess of Windsor, Audrey Hepburn, and Josephine Baker. Vreeland goes far beyond them into the imaginative, gossipy world she knew so well.

Essential Man Ray

ESSENTIAL MAN RAY
By Ingrid Schaffner
One of the essential series published b Harry N Abrams of New York , here we learn about the life and career of the Philadelphia born Dadaist-Surrealist photographer and painter Man Ray , whi began life as Emmanuel Rudinitsky in 1890 and died in Paris in 1976.
He delighted in shocking his viewers with works designed to”amuse, annoy, bewilder, and mystify”, we learn that the essence of the man and his work lies in surrealism , his art showing us the uncanny and disturbing in the every day life.
Although he liked to be known as a painter , his most striking images were made with the camera , and well women specifically was probably the biggest influence in his art.

Discourses on Art

DISCOURSES ON ART
Sir Joshua Reynolds
.by Robert Wark
Sir Joshua Reynolds’ discourses on art ‘forms one of the most eloquent literary documents in the history of the European art. Composed as lectures to the students at the Royal Academy in the late eighteenth century, they both summarise the art theory of the previous 300 years and point towards the attitudes prevalent in the nineteenth century. His general topic is the education of the artist and he is concerned with the essentials of the problem he tackles: the purpose of art, the nature of the creative process and the artist’s relation to tradition. Long recognized as the fundamental text for the study of the eighteenth century English painting, this edition is generally considered to be the definitive.

Seven pillars of wisdom

THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM
By T E Lawrence
As Angus Calder states in his introduction to this edition, seven pillars of wisdom is one of the major statements about the fighting experience of the First World War. Lawrence’s younger brothers, Frank and Will, had been killed on the western front in 1915 the book was written in between 1919 and 1926 and it tells of the vastly different campaign against Turks in the Middle East, one of which encompasses gross acts of cruelty and revenge and ends in a welter of stink and corpses in the disgusting hospital in Damascus

Breaking into print

BREAKING INTO PRINT
Before and after the invention of the printing press
By Stephen Krensky
Up until the early 1400s, books were hand lettered by the monks using knife sharpened quills. They were so rare and valuable that they were chained to the shelves of monastery libraries. But, once the printing pres was available, the world of reading and access to information opened up to every one. For the first time explorers, scientists and writers could share their knowledge and the lives of people .every where were transformed.

Wuthering heights

WUTHERING HEIGHTS
By Emily Bronte
The great story about two wild children growing up together on the wind swept moor. A forced separation leads to an unsuitable marriage and general instability. Death and madness follow on this.

Light house to Monk's house

FROM THE LIGHT HOUSE TO MONK’S HOUSE
A guide to Virginia Woolf’s literary landscapes
By Katherine Hill Miller
Divided into five chapters, in each we are introduced to the book in question and the author’s circumstances while writing it. Then we are taken to the locations and given an interpretive guide, which relates the place to the work. We begin with St. Ives, Cornwall, where Virginia Woolf spent many childhood summers, and whose bay, beach and Victorian interiors provide the backdrop to the lighthouse. Then we visit London, in particular Kensington, where she grew up and which provides the centre stage in Mrs. Dalloway, then we are off to the grand country seat at Knoll in Kent, home of the Villa Sackville West , both her and the house being the chief inspirations of Orlando. It is Cambridge, our next stop, the setting for a room of one’s own and finally Rodmell in East Sussex, the location for Leonard and Virginia’s home Monica’s house and this is the location for ‘Between the acts’. Each chapter includes a traveler’s guide to the places featured in the books. How to hire a boat to get to the light house , tour Cambridge in Woolf’s foot steps etc. with the plenty of notes in it , this book is not only an essential introduction to her books, but also a fascinating tour around both the places and the author’s thinking process.

King of Pirates

KING OF PIRATES
By Daniel Defoe
Following the success of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe composed a further tale of high adventure at sea, “The King of Pirates”. In response to slanderous allegations accusing him of the worst possible deeds, rape murder and plunder beyond mere piracy, Captain Avery pens a reply seeking to exonerate him from all such charges. . He sees fit to provide a full account of life as a captain of a pirate ship and how he came to be proclaimed as the King of Madagascar. Yet far from being the archetypal, murderous villain, his letters reveal him simply to be a very lovable rogue, albeit one involved in buried treasure, surprise cargo and fortunes foul and fair