c 1950 to c 1959

She was Pym to friends. Miss Pym in her diaries. Sandra in seduction mode. Pymska at her most sophisticated. English novelist Barbara Pym's career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel 'Some Tame Gazelle' was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally pub...

Record-breaking England cricketer, wartime RAF hero, Tottenham Hotspur footballer, and husband to five wives - this is the captivating life of one of England's most remarkable yet often overlooked cricketing heroes, Bill Edrich.

This title opens with one of the greatest disasters in British military history - the fall of Singapore in February 1942. Unlike in the aftermath of Dunkirk there was here simply no redeeming narrative available - Britain had been totally defeated by a far smaller Japanese force in her grandly pr...

Operation Chastise, the destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams in north-west Germany by the RAF's 617 Squadron on the night of 16/17 May 1943, was an epic that has passed into Britain's national legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson,...

Duncan Edwards was the jewel in the crown of the Busby Babes, an all-time legend at just 21, who was denied the chance to achieve even greater footballing success by the Munich Air Disaster in 1958. This new biography, with support from friends and relatives, includes rare and unseen pictures and...

When the Queen ascended the throne in 1953 at the age of 25, Britain was a very different nation. In this vital history, Andrew Marr tells the story of modern Britain through the people who shaped it: from Sylvia Plath to Elvis Costello, Frank Critchlow to Bob Geldof, Zaha Hadid to James Dyson, D...

When the Queen ascended the throne in 1953 at the age of 25, Britain was a very different nation. In this vital history, Andrew Marr tells the story of modern Britain through the people who shaped it: from Sylvia Plath to Elvis Costello, Frank Critchlow to Bob Geldof, Zaha Hadid to James Dyson, D...

Portraying a generation whose lives were radically shaped by two world wars, this book is also a study of old age as observed by youth.

Agent Al Dewey of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation has a horrific murder to solve - and precious few clues. Capote's reconstruction of the slaughter of an entire family shows a gripping mix of journalistic skills and imaginative power.

During the 1940s and 1950s John Christie, an English serial killer and necrophile from Halifax, murdered at least eight people - including his wife, Ethel - by strangling them in his flat at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, London. Two further bodies were found wrapped in a tablecloth in the wa...