Paddington Pollaky


Book Description

Who was the Victorian super-sleuth ‘Paddington’ Pollaky? In reality, he was a contradiction: a man of mystery who tried to keep out of the limelight, while at times he craved recognition and publicity. He was a busybody, a meddler, yet someone whose heart was ultimately in the right place. Newspaper accounts detail his work as a private detective in London, his association with The Society for the Protection of Young Females, his foiling of those involved in sex-trafficking, and of his tracking down of abducted children. Themes that remain relevant in the twenty-first century. What was his involvement in the American Civil War? Why did he place cryptic messages in the agony column of The Times? And why were the newspapers so interested in this Hungarian detective and adventurer while the police thoroughly disapproved of him? In this first biography of this complex character, author Bryan Kesselman answers these questions, and examines whether it was Pollaky who provided the inspiration for the literary greats Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes.




Year of Folly


Book Description

All Emma wants is to belong… Emma, the youngest daughter of the great family, cannot find acceptance among the peers of society despite four Seasons of pleasing everyone. She is banished to Inverness to avoid any scandal her anger might cause. Even in Inverness, she is an outsider, for her cousins, including staid and boring Morgan Davies, spend all their days working and thinking, for heaven’s sake! Having survived years of the family’s disasters, Morgan likes his quiet life and routine. Emma’s excesses and plain speaking disrupt his days. When Emma discovers politics and adopts as her cause women’s suffrage, the most outrageous scandal the family has yet to produce threatens to turn Morgan’s world inside out… This book is the twelfth in the Scandalous Scions series, bringing together the members of three great families, to love and play under the gaze of the Victorian era’s moralistic, straight-laced society. This story is part of the Scandalous Scions series: 0.5 Rose of Ebony 1.0 Soul of Sin 2.0 Valor of Love 3.0 Marriage of Lies 4.0 Mask of Nobility 5.0 Law of Attraction 6.0 Veil of Honor 7.0 Season of Denial 8.0 Rules of Engagement 9.0 Degree of Solitude 10.0 Ashes of Pride 11.0 Risk of Ruin 12.0 Year of Folly 13.0 Queen of Hearts A Sexy Historical Romance ___ Praise for the Scandalous Scions series: If you haven't started this series, start right now and you will fall in love with this very unconventional family during a time when rules, etiquette and unwritten rules had to be followed or the lack of them would bring scandal and ruin to an entire family. I love these books. Tracy creates these characters so well and with such care. I really recommend reading this series. I am overwhelmed by how much I have enjoyed this series so far. It was not superficial fluff as I thought it might be when I began. Cooper-Posey books have touched on so many universal themes. Her characters are admirable people who love their family and are capable of deep romantic love as well. I just love this series and the books just keep getting better and better. This series takes us on a romp through historical times, which I love. If you haven't read this magnificent series you must do so now; you will love each story, be moved by each of them, fall in love with the heroines and heroes, you will cheer for them and just as loudly boo the villains. Love this series and have bought them all. This entire series is filled with so much love for each other and family, that there is no way you cannot be emotionally drawn into each story.




GEARED UP: WRITING STEAMPUNK


Book Description

"The best thing about Steampunk is getting to rewrite history." Or so a reviewer said in commenting about Geared Up Writing Steampunk. But author Beth Daniels totally agrees with them In this, the 3rd edition of the book, she adds a few more elements to the fun PLUS expands the listing of Steampunk publishers from 36 to 43, many of them new to the volume with no longer valid ones dropped. Since the first edition back in 2010, this has been the only volume to focus solely on writing Steampunk fiction and building the Steampunk stage on which characters play. Steampunk is, without a doubt, the most fun a historian in love with the 19th century can have since this is enhancement rewriting of what events might have been if technology got an extra boost a bit earlier. Reviewers say: "...just plain fun to read," "...essential to anyone wanting to dip] their toe into writing steampunk. It is told in a no nonsense yet humorous way and gave invaluable info." "Inspirational. Must read again with notepad and pen."




Scandalous Scions Box Four


Book Description

The final four novels in the beloved historical romance series in one set. The historical romance series, Scandalous Scions, brings together the members of three great families, to love and play under the gaze of the Victorian era’s moralistic, straight-laced society. Ashes of Pride Married in haste, to the wrong man… Blanche wed Lieutenant Colonel Seymour in search of a hero to replace the French military father she never knew, only to find herself stranded in Northumberland, in a penniless marriage, with no recourse. Blanche’s cousin, Neil Williams, now a decorated Major, returns from the colonies to rejoin the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Her husband, as Neil’s superior officer, makes Neil’s life intolerable, as well as her own. Blanche learns that the truly courageous are defined by their actions and that Seymour is not one of them, for what he does to Neil defies imagination… Risk of Ruin Now she belongs to another, he realizes too late that he wants her. Lady Annalies is the daughter of the Earl of Innesford, but rejects society. Instead, she embraces the Bohemian art world, and lives in secret with her patron and lover, Tobias. The only person who knows the truth is her cousin, Peter, who furiously resents the burden of knowing how she courts disaster for the entire family. When sales of her paintings diminish, putting her in financial straits, Annalies turns to Peter for help, as he has always helped her in the past. Peter grasps the chance to involve himself in her life, to head off the catastrophe she flirts with every day. The entanglements increase when he realizes it is not merely the risk of ruin which draws him to her. Year of Folly All Emma wants is to belong… Emma, the youngest daughter of the great family, cannot find acceptance among the peers of society despite four Seasons of pleasing everyone. She is banished to Inverness to avoid any scandal her anger might cause. Even in Inverness, she is an outsider, for her cousins, including staid and boring Morgan Davies, spend all their days working and thinking, for heaven’s sake! Having survived years of the family’s disasters, Morgan likes his quiet life and routine. Emma’s excesses and plain speaking disrupt his days. When Emma discovers politics and adopts as her cause women’s suffrage, the most outrageous scandal the family has yet to produce threatens to turn Morgan’s world inside out… Queen of Hearts In America, she met an Indian called River. Sadie travelled to America when she was nineteen, leaving behind her great family, to learn more about her real parents and how they died. While traveling in the Columbia River territories, her party is attacked by Indians and saved by a different tribe. Among them is the brave she comes to know as River. Sadie learns that not only is River an Englishman, he is the son of the Duke of Caldwell. When his family learns he survived his parents’ death when he was an infant, River faces a choice: Leave Sadie and his tribe behind, or let the people of Caldwell suffer at the hands of his indifferent and selfish uncle… The Scandalous Scions series: 0.5 Rose of Ebony 1.0 Soul of Sin 2.0 Valor of Love 3.0 Marriage of Lies 3.5 Scandalous Scions I 4.0 Mask of Nobility 5.0 Law of Attraction 6.0 Veil of Honor 6.5 Scandalous Scions II 7.0 Season of Denial 8.0 Rules of Engagement 9.0 Degree of Solitude 9.5 Scandalous Scions III 10.0 Ashes of Pride 11.0 Risk of Ruin 12.0 Year of Folly 13.0 Queen of Hearts 13.5 Scandalous Scions IV A Sexy Historical Romance Collection




Musical Style and Social Meaning


Book Description

Why do we feel justified in using adjectives such as romantic, erotic, heroic, melancholic, and a hundred others when speaking about music? How do we locate these meanings within particular musical styles? These are questions that have occupied Derek Scott's thoughts and driven his critical musicological research for many years. In this selection of essays, dating from 1995-2010, he returns time and again to examining how conventions of representation arise and how they become established. Among the themes of the collection are social class, ideology, national identity, imperialism, Orientalism, race, the sacred and profane, modernity and postmodernity, and the vexed relationship of art and entertainment. A wide variety of musical styles is discussed, ranging from jazz and popular song to the symphonic repertoire and opera.




Gilbert & Sullivan


Book Description




The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan


Book Description

Thespis -- Trial by jury -- The sorcerer -- H.M.S. Pinafore -- The pirates of penzance -- Patience -- Iolanthe -- Princess Ida -- The mikado -- Ruddigore -- The yeomen of the guard -- The gondoliers -- Utopia limited -- The grand duke




Nineteenth-Century British Music Studies


Book Description

Originally published in 2003 and selected from papers given at the third biennial conference on Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain, this volume, in common with its two predecessors, reflects the interdisciplinary character of the topic. The introductory essay by Julian Rushton considers some of the questions that are key to this area of study: what is the nineteenth century, what is British music, and did London influence the continent? The essays that follow are divided into broad thematic groups covering aspects of gender, church music, national identity, and local and national institutions. This collection illustrates that while nineteenth-century British music studies is still in its infancy as a field of research, it is one that is burgeoning and contributing to our understanding of British social and cultural life of the period.




Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician


Book Description

Published in 1992. This is a revised, enlarged edition of a book which on its original appearance in 1984 was hailed as a landmark in the study of Victorian musical life. It presents the figure of Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1990) not only as the celebrated co-creator of light operas with W.S Gilbert, but as a composer of all kinds of music from symphony and concerto to ballads such as ‘The Lost Chord’ and hymns such as ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’. A prominent public life, with a knighthood in 1883, is contrasted with an unconventional private life involving a liaison of almost thirty years with an American living in London, Mary Frances Ronalds. The author’s access to Sullivan’s diary held by Yale University and to letters and other documents at the Pierpont Morgan library in New York gives this book both a unique authority and a deep human understanding. A new chapter updates research to the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, 1992, and incorporates music examples.




Notes and Queries


Book Description