Murder in Belgravia

Murder in Belgravia PDF Author: Lynn Brittney
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1683318935
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A high-profile murder propels a unique crime-fighting team into London’s underworld in this “delightful . . . compelling” WWI-era British mystery (Rhys Bowen, author of the Royal Spyness mysteries) London, 1915. As World War I engulfs Europe, a special task force is formed in the affluent Mayfair district to tackle the city’s thorniest crimes against women. When the bobbies and Scotland Yard come up short, there’s only one telephone number to dial: Mayfair 100. An aristocrat has been murdered, and his wife, a witness and possible suspect, will only talk to a woman. With the blessing of London’s Chief Commissioner, Chief Inspector Beech, a young man invalided out of the war, assembles a crew of sharp, intrepid, and well-educated women to investigate. But to get at the truth, Beech, Victoria, Caroline, Rigsby, and Tollman will venture into the city’s seedy underbelly, a world where murder is only the first in a litany of evils. Lynn Brittney’s Mayfair 100 series debut, Murder in Belgravia, is the darkly compelling story of a movement far ahead of its time, in an attempt to combat the prejudices against women then and now.

Murder in Belgravia

Murder in Belgravia PDF Author: Lynn Brittney
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1683318935
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
A high-profile murder propels a unique crime-fighting team into London’s underworld in this “delightful . . . compelling” WWI-era British mystery (Rhys Bowen, author of the Royal Spyness mysteries) London, 1915. As World War I engulfs Europe, a special task force is formed in the affluent Mayfair district to tackle the city’s thorniest crimes against women. When the bobbies and Scotland Yard come up short, there’s only one telephone number to dial: Mayfair 100. An aristocrat has been murdered, and his wife, a witness and possible suspect, will only talk to a woman. With the blessing of London’s Chief Commissioner, Chief Inspector Beech, a young man invalided out of the war, assembles a crew of sharp, intrepid, and well-educated women to investigate. But to get at the truth, Beech, Victoria, Caroline, Rigsby, and Tollman will venture into the city’s seedy underbelly, a world where murder is only the first in a litany of evils. Lynn Brittney’s Mayfair 100 series debut, Murder in Belgravia, is the darkly compelling story of a movement far ahead of its time, in an attempt to combat the prejudices against women then and now.

A Death in Chelsea

A Death in Chelsea PDF Author: Lynn Brittney
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781912624201
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Slumming

Slumming PDF Author: Seth Koven
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691128006
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
In the 1880s, fashionable Londoners left their elegant homes and clubs in Mayfair and Belgravia and crowded into omnibuses bound for midnight tours of the slums of East London. A new word burst into popular usage to describe these descents into the precincts of poverty to see how the poor lived: slumming. In this captivating book, Seth Koven paints a vivid portrait of the practitioners of slumming and their world: who they were, why they went, what they claimed to have found, how it changed them, and how slumming, in turn, powerfully shaped both Victorian and twentieth-century understandings of poverty and social welfare, gender relations, and sexuality. The slums of late-Victorian London became synonymous with all that was wrong with industrial capitalist society. But for philanthropic men and women eager to free themselves from the starched conventions of bourgeois respectability and domesticity, slums were also places of personal liberation and experimentation. Slumming allowed them to act on their irresistible "attraction of repulsion" for the poor and permitted them, with society's approval, to get dirty and express their own "dirty" desires for intimacy with slum dwellers and, sometimes, with one another. Slumming elucidates the histories of a wide range of preoccupations about poverty and urban life, altruism and sexuality that remain central in Anglo-American culture, including the ethics of undercover investigative reporting, the connections between cross-class sympathy and same-sex desire, and the intermingling of the wish to rescue the poor with the impulse to eroticize and sexually exploit them. By revealing the extent to which politics and erotics, social and sexual categories overflowed their boundaries and transformed one another, Koven recaptures the ethical dilemmas that men and women confronted--and continue to confront--in trying to "love thy neighbor as thyself."

A Case of Blackmail in Belgravia

A Case of Blackmail in Belgravia PDF Author: Clara Benson
Publisher: Mount Street Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
It's 1929, and Ticky Maltravers is the toast of London high society, adored by everyone—or so it seems, until somebody poisons him over dinner. Now it turns out that numerous people with secrets to hide had every reason to wish him dead. But which of them murdered him? For Freddy Pilkington-Soames, newspaper reporter and man-about-town, the question hits a little too close to home, thanks to an unfortunate drunken encounter with Ticky's corpse which he'd much rather the police didn't find out about—and thanks also to his exasperating mother Cynthia's seeming determination to get herself arrested by tampering with the evidence. But a pretty girl with big blue eyes is demanding his help in solving the mystery, so what can he do but agree? Now all he has to do is hide the wrong clues, find the right ones, and unmask the murderer before the police discover what's really been going on. That ought to be easy enough. If only people didn't keep getting killed...

Historic Streets and Squares

Historic Streets and Squares PDF Author: Melanie Backe-Hansen
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750951656
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
In this picturesque exploration of Britain’s constructed landscape, an array of medieval lanes, Georgian crescents and Victorian squares make an appearance, together with the people – famous, infamous and unfamiliar – who designed, built and lived in them. From Bedford Square and Portobello Road in London, through to Grey Street in Newcastle and Charlotte Square in Edinburgh, Historic Streets and Squares takes you over the doorstep of some of the country’s most familiar addresses. Melanie Backe-Hansen takes us beyond the facades, delving into the evolution of ancient streets, the aspirations of builders and architects, and the extraordinary lives of past residents. She also reveals the fascinating stories of how some of our oldest and most valued crescents, lanes and avenues have survived into the twenty-first century, and the twists and turns of their journey along the way. Taken together, these fifty examples tell us much about Britain’s urban development over the centuries, while also highlighting more recent attempts to preserve our architectural heritage. The history of our streets, avenues, lanes and squares reveals more than just changes to architectural style, but offers a doorway into the heritage of our nation.

Heiresses

Heiresses PDF Author: Laura Thompson
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250202744
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Laura Thompson returns with Heiresses, a fascinating look at the lives of heiresses throughout history and the often tragic truth beneath the gilded surface. Heiresses: surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wife’s inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions. Heiresses tells the stories of these million dollar babies: Mary Davies, who inherited London’s most valuable real estate, and was bartered from the age of twelve; Consuelo Vanderbilt, the original American “Dollar Heiress”, forced into a loveless marriage; Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress who married seven times and died almost penniless; and Patty Hearst, heiress to a newspaper fortune who was arrested for terrorism. However, there are also stories of independence and achievement: Angela Burdett-Coutts, who became one of the greatest philanthropists of Victorian England; Nancy Cunard, who lived off her mother's fortune and became a pioneer of the civil rights movement; and Daisy Fellowes, elegant linchpin of interwar high society and noted fashion editor. Heiresses is about the lives of the rich, who—as F. Scott Fitzgerald said—are ‘different’. But it is also a bigger story about how all women fought their way to equality, and sometimes even found autonomy and fulfillment.

A Case of Murder in Mayfair

A Case of Murder in Mayfair PDF Author: Clara Benson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781913355357
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
When Hollywood star Dorothy Dacres plummets six floors from her hotel terrace on the night of her greatest triumph, it initially looks like a tragic accident. But her death is so very convenient to her many enemies that press-man Freddy Pilkington-Soames, who was there on the night she died, begins to suspect foul play. And when cocaine is found in her room, it only complicates matters further. Soon Freddy is chasing across London on the trail of drug dealers, in reluctant company with his deadly rival Corky Beckwith, the most unscrupulous reporter in Fleet Street, who will do anything for a story. With the future of a film studio at stake, can Freddy find the culprit-and get one up on Corky-before he becomes the killer's next victim?

The Consequences of Love

The Consequences of Love PDF Author: Gavanndra Hodge
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 1405943238
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The must-read memoir about the dazzling days and dark nights of a Chelsea childhood . . . 'Brilliant and moving' The Times 'Dazzling' Evening Standard 'Beautifully written' Marian Keyes 'Unflinchingly honest Sunday Times 'Superbly written' Guardian 'A triumph' i _______ Her father was a hairdresser to the rich and famous - he was also their drug dealer. Her mother was an alcoholic fashion model. Her days and nights were non-stop parties - she spent them taking care of her little sister and putting out naked flames. And when her sister dies aged nine, Gavanndra is left alone with her grief. Growing up in the dazzling days and dark nights of her parents' social lives, surviving means fitting into their dysfunctional world, while stopping the family from falling apart . . . _________ 'A redemptive tale of an emotional reckoning' i 'This story will stay with you long after you put the book down' Emma Gannon 'There are scenes that will reduce you to tears, but there's also humour, forgiveness and uplifting optimism. By the end of this dazzling debut you just want to give her a huge cheer for coming through' Evening Standard 'A masterful writer with a gift for storytelling' i

Inheritance: The tragedy of Mary Davies

Inheritance: The tragedy of Mary Davies PDF Author: Leo Hollis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786079968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
‘Brilliant’ Financial Times ‘Hollis expertly weaves together the human tragedy and high politics behind the explosion of one of the world’s greatest cities’ Dan Snow The reclaimed history of a woman whose tragic life tells a story of madness, forced marriages and how the super-rich came to own London June 1701, and a young widow wakes in a Paris hotel to find a man in her bed. Within hours they are married. Yet three weeks later, the bride flees to London and swears that she had never agreed to the wedding. So begins one of the most intriguing stories of madness, tragic passion and the curse of inheritance. Inheritance charts the forgotten life of Mary Davies and the fate of the land that she inherited as a baby – land that would become the squares, wide streets and elegant homes of Mayfair, Belgravia, Kensington and Pimlico. From child brides and mad heiresses to religious controversy and shady dealing, the drama culminated in a court case that determined not just the state of Mary’s legacy but the future of London itself.

The Case of the Married Woman

The Case of the Married Woman PDF Author: Antonia Fraser
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1639361588
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Award-winning historian Antonia Fraser brilliantly portrays a courageous and compassionate woman who refused to be curbed by the personal and political constraints of her time. Caroline Norton dazzled nineteenth-century society with her vivacity, her intelligence, her poetry, and in her role as an artist's muse. After her marriage in 1828 to the MP George Norton, she continued to attract friends and admirers to her salon in Westminster, which included the young Disraeli. Most prominent among her admirers was the widowed Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. Racked with jealousy, George Norton took the Prime Minister to court, suing him for damages on account of his 'Criminal Conversation' (adultery) with Caroline. A dramatic trial followed. Despite the unexpected and sensational result—acquittal—Norton was still able to legally deny Caroline access to her three children, all under seven. He also claimed her income as an author for himself, since the copyrights of a married woman belonged to her husband. Yet Caroline refused to despair. Beset by the personal cruelties perpetrated by her husband and a society whose rules were set against her, she chose to fight, not surrender. She channeled her energies in an area of much-needed reform: the rights of a married woman and specifically those of a mother. Over the next few years she campaigned tirelessly, achieving her first landmark victory with the Infant Custody Act of 1839. Provisions which are now taken for granted, such as the right of a mother to have access to her own children, owe much to Caroline, who was determined to secure justice for women at all levels of society from the privileged to the dispossessed.