Daisy Hay Books

Young Romantics explores the interconnected lives of young English Romantic poets, highlighting their extreme youth, yearning for friendship, individuality, and political radicalism. The narrative centers on the community surrounding Percy Bysshe Shelley and journalist Leigh Hunt, featuring prominent figures like Lord Byron, John Keats, and Mary Shelley, along with lesser-known yet intriguing personalities such as Claire Clairmont, Elizabeth Kent, Vincent Novello, and artists like Benjamin Haydon and Joseph Severn. These individuals were marked by talent, idealism, and youthful fervor, which influenced their politically oppositional views. The story unfolds from 1813, when they began to gather around Hunt in London, to 1822. The book presents a captivating tale of love, betrayal, sacrifice, and friendship set against a backdrop of political upheaval and vibrant literary creativity. The prose is described as firm, clear, and elegant, effectively narrating the significant events in the lives of these figures. The account vividly captures the passionate and tumultuous experiences of the Romantics, providing a picturesque and finely told exploration of their lives.

*Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize* In late eighteenth-century London, a group of extraordinary people gathered around a dining table once a week. The host was Joseph Johnson, publisher and bookseller and he was joined at dinner by a shifting constellation of great minds including William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Henry Fuseli, Anna Barbauld and Mary Wollstonecraft. Johnson's years as a maker of books saw profound change in Britain and abroad. In this remarkable portrait of a revolutionary age, Daisy Hay captures a changing nation through the stories of the men and women who wrote it into being, and whose ideas still influence us today. 'Rich in period and personal detail' Guardian 'Hugely engrossing' Sunday Times

Cats are better than men - fact. When was the last time you had to tell a cat not to embarrass you in public? Would a cat go out for a night on the tiles and come back smelling of anything worse than a fish supper?All the evidence is inside this book - there's nothing mad about being a catwoman!