Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Martindale-Meynell


Book Description

55,000 biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to the year 2002.




Frederick William Faber


Book Description

"The accepted historical picture of Frederick William Faber has often been that of a portly, ebullient, over-emotional individual, remembered chiefly as the founder of the London Oratory, for his disagreements with John Henry Newman, and for his prolific output of hymns (often triumphalist and occasionally sentimental). There is, however, a more profound side to Faber, which made him, in the opinion of one of his contemporaries, Henry Edward Manning, 'a great servant of God'." "This book presents us with the diverse, and often contradictory, strands within Faber's personal spirituality, and identifies the spiritual and intellectual processes that characterised his movement from Calvinistic Anglicanism to Ultramontane Roman Catholicism. If also explores areas of Faber's life that have not been discussed in detail before; his years within the Church of England, university life at Oxford, conversion to Roman Catholicism, foundation of the religious Order the Brothers of the Will of God, and the London Oratory."--BOOK JACKET.




Troy on Display


Book Description

This book explores what visitors saw at the Trojan exhibition and why its contents, including treasure, plain pottery and human remains captured imaginations and divided opinions. When Schliemann's Trojan collection was first exhibited in 1877, no-one had seen anything like it. Schliemann claimed these objects had been owned by participants in the Trojan War and that they were tangible evidence that Homer's epics were true. Yet, these objects did not reflect the heroic past imagined by Victorians, and a fierce controversy broke out about the collection's value and significance. Schliemann invited Londoners to see the very unclassical objects on display as the roots of classical culture. Artists, poets, historians, race theorists, bankers and humourists took up this challenge, but their conclusions were not always to Schliemann's liking. Troy's appeal lay in its materiality: visitors could apply analytical techniques (from aesthetic appreciation to skull-measuring) to the collection and draw their own conclusions. This book argues for a deep examination of museum exhibitions as a constructed spatial experience, which can transform how the past is seen. This new angle on a famous archaeological discovery shows the museum as a site of controversy, where hard evidence and wild imagination came together to form a lasting image of Troy.
















The Dictionary of National Biography, 1981-1985


Book Description

The Dictionary of national biography possesses an unrivalled reputation as the compendium of national achievement, combining scholarship with lively and entertaining prose. This supplement records the biographies of 280 distinguished men and women, for the most part British, who died between the beginning of 1981 and the end of 1985.







Eclipse & O'Kelly


Book Description