Victoria Glendinning Book order

By the time of his death, Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) was the founder of Singapore and Governor of Java, having left school in his early teens to become a clerk for the British East India Company. Charismatic and daring, Raffles forged an extraordinary path for himself in South East Asia - refusing to be satisfied with the trading posts available to the British, he defied Dutch governors and wrangled with warring local rulers to establish what is now a world city. An ardent linguist and zoologist, Raffles spoke fluent Malay and found time to write The History of Java, as well as naming several species of flora and fauna he discovered on his travels. He founded London Zoo and promoted the study of Malay alongside European languages in Southeast Asia.Raffles remains a controversial figure - a utopian imperialist, disobedient employee and knight of the realm who died deeply in debt, predeceased by all but one of his children. He built racial segregation into his urban planning, but was also a staunch abolitionist. Renowned biographer Victoria Glendinning charts Raffles' prodigious rise in this new edition, specially updated for the bicentenary of the foundation of Singapore in 1819. His life was short, complicated and shot through with tragedy, but Raffles' fame lives on.

‘Historical fiction at its finest.' @MargaretAtwood It is 1535 and Agnes Peppin, daughter of a West-country butcher, has been banished, leaving her family home in disgrace to live out the rest of her life cloistered behind the walls of Shaftesbury Abbey. While Agnes grapples with the complex rules and hierarchies of the sisterhood, King Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Head of the Church of England. Religious houses are being formally subjugated, monasteries dissolved, and the great Abbey is no exception to the purge. Cast out with her sisters, Agnes is at last free to be the master of her own fate. But freedom comes at a price as she descends into a world she knows little about, using her wits and testing her moral convictions against her need to survive - by any means necessary...

Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, this is the definitive portrait of a spontaneous, gallant, yet tragically insecure woman. 'The excellence of Mrs Glendinning's book is that it remains wise and balanced while never sacrificing critical edge...

Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) was the charismatic and persuasive founder of Singapore and Governor of Java. An English adventurer, disobedient employee of the East India Company, utopian imperialist, linguist, zoologist and civil servant, he carved an extraordinary (though brief) life for himself in South East Asia. The tropical, disease-ridden settings of his story are as dramatic as his own trajectory - an obscure young man with no advantages other than talent and obsessive drive, who changed history by establishing - without authority - on the wretchedly unpromising island of Singapore a settlement which has become a world city.After a turbulent time in the East Indies, Raffles returned to the UK and turned to his other great interests - botany and zoology. He founded London Zoo in 1826, the year of his death.Raffles remains a controversial figure, and in the first biography for over forty years, Victoria Glendinning charts his prodigious rise within the social and historical contexts of his world. His domestic and personal life was vivid and shot through with tragedy. His own end was sad, but his fame immortal.

The biography delves into the life of Leonard Woolf, highlighting his role as a key figure in the Bloomsbury Group and his relationship with Virginia Woolf. Through meticulous research and new insights, the author explores his contributions to literature and thought during early 20th-century Britain. The inclusion of photographs enriches the narrative, offering a visual connection to Woolf's experiences and the vibrant cultural milieu he was part of.

In this richly detailed biography Victoria Glendinning brings alive the great Anglo-Irish novelist (The Death of the Heart, The Heat of the Day) whose literary achievements were matched by her tremendous talent for living.

Poet, polemicist, pamphleteer and wit, Swift is best known as the author of "Gulliver's Travels". In this biography, Victoria Glendinning investigates the main events and relationships of Swift's life and provides a portrait set in a tapestry of controversy and paradox.

"I always wanted everything so frantically, and I'm just the person that can't have them.' Based on family papers and memories, this picture of middle class life at the end of the nineteenth century tells the poignant story of Winnie Seebohm, Victoria Glendinning's great-aunt, who in 1885 was one of the early students at Newnham College, Cambridge. Though much loved by her family, Winnie was stifled in her desire for life and died at the age of twenty-two.

In Victorian England, electricity is the latest scientific marvel, a fireless light that announces a new era. For Charlotte Mortimer, electricity yields something even more powerful. When she weds an ardent young engineer who is commissioned to wire the estate of a country gentleman, Charlotte finds herself in a disorienting world of new ideas and sensations--and a passion that ultimately forces her to forge a life on her own terms.