Time period: 19th century

Dismissed from her position as housemaid under a cloud of misunderstanding, Tilly True is forced to return home. Tilly is determined to make something of her life and rather than admit the truth to her poverty-stricken family she sets out once more in search of employment.

Despite living by the side of the Thames, with its noise, disease and dirt, 18-year-old Rosina May has wanted for little in life. Until her father's feud with a fellow bargeman threatens to destroy everything. To save them all, Rosina agrees to marry Harry, the son of a wealthy merchant.

Derby Day at Epsom Downs. With the nation a-flutter in the run up to this national event, a disembodied head is discovered on a passenger train at Crewe; the first in a murky course of events that takes in murder, fraud and race-fixing. Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant are ass...

Since the untimely death of her husband, young mother Effie Grey has been forced to live on a narrowboat owned by her tyrannical, crippled father-in-law Jacob. In spite of her own despair, she is determined to protect her brother Tom and her baby son Georgie from Jacob's bullying ways - for she i...

Novelist, satirist, poet, photographer, painter, alchemist, and hellraiser - August Strindberg was all these. This biography describes the eventful and complicated life of one of the great literary figures in world literature.

Gifted with a beautiful soprano voice, young Clemency Skinner is forced to work as a pickpocket in order to support her crippled brother, Jack. Their feckless mother, Edith, has fallen into the clutches of an unscrupulous pimp, whose evil presence threatens their daily existence.

Born into poverty and living under the roof of her violent and abusive brother-in-law, young Kitty Cox dreams of working in a women's dress shop in the West End - a million miles away from the reality of her life as a mud-lark, scavenging on the banks of the Thames.

Wanting something better out of life than making match boxes for a pittance, Hetty Huggins dreams of setting up her own business. With the help of friends, she sells hot potatoes on the streets and things begin to look up for her and her younger siblings. But when the tallyman comes calling, once...

Set in the countryside of the Yorkshire Wolds and the River Humber, this is a companion volume to 'The Hungry Tide.' Annie has killed a man in the slums of Hull, and now she flees along the paths of the Humber, to unfamiliar territory and a new life.

This intimate personal engagement, by an eminent Austen authority, shows how living with Jane Austen can transform the way we look at the world. Janet Todd discusses all Austen's works - fragments, childhood writings, novels and letters - uncovering a timeless writer whose themes and prose contin...

An engaging, thoroughly researched tale of youthful naivety and courage in the face of adversity, full of rich detail and imagination.

1820. Mary Dorothea Knatchbull is living under the sole charge of her widowed father, Sir Edward - a man of strict principles and high Christian values. But when her father marries Miss Fanny Knight of Godmersham Park, Mary's life is suddenly changed. Her new stepmother comes from a large, happy ...

'Izabela the Valiant' is a story of a vulnerable but resilient women caught up in extraordinary events - a story that must be told. In the late 18th century, Europe sat at a crossroads, the formerly rococo world shattered by the French Revolution and then transformed by Napoleon's agenda. Social ...

1854. Ben Canaan is a troublesome 21-year-old getting up to mischief in the East End with his band of fellow Good-for-Nothings. But when a shocking discovery turns Ben's life upside-down, he journeys halfway across the world to Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, on the eve of the Crim...

It is 1895, and turn-of-the-century Paris is as chaotic as it is glamorous. Industry and invention have created ever greater wealth and terrible poverty. One autumn morning, an anarchist boards the Granville to Paris express train, determined to make her mark on history. Aboard the train are othe...

When they married Emperors Franz Joseph and Napoleon III, respectively, Elisabeth of Austria and Eugenie of France became two of the most famous women on the planet. Not only were they both young and beautiful, but they played a pivotal role in ruling their realms during a tempestuous era charact...

Lincolnshire, 1854. After much reflection, Caroline Lawson has accepted Max Cavendish's marriage proposal. Yet their peaceful life on the farm is soon threatened by a series of mishaps and the strange deaths of livestock. As pressure mounts for Max to make the farm a success, the weight of respon...

1841. Mr Montgomery Hurst of Radcliffe Park is getting married. To the great consternation of the county of Wickenshire, he is not marrying the daughter of an earl, but an impoverished widow with three children, whom nobody has ever heard of. Society is both appalled and intrigued. Nobody is more...

1812, the Lake District. Despite their attempts to keep their forbidden romance away from the disapproving eyes of society, Dr Jacob Sandys and his lover, the actress Dora Fitz-Pennington, find themselves drawn into the scandals of the British elite once more when William Wordsworth's prized note...